Returning to the Trenches 1914 by C.R.W. Nevinson Essay

Returning to the Trenches 1914 by C.R.W. Nevinson - Essay Example While in the process of recovering he made several paintings based on his wartime experience with the army in France. In his own words, he confirms to have seen the Great War as an event that was so tragic. Nevinson still made the argument that the only way to express violence, brutality and the crude form is to use the futuristic technique. This technique is used to express emotions that appear in battle fields in Europe. This is clearly seen through his painting called, Returning to the Trenches, which he painted concerning the Western Front. One of its critics, P.G. Konody on the 14th March 1915 noted that â€Å"returning to the trenches† is rather a different but interesting picture where he found an extreme formula for the rhythm of a marching body, which is of a French infantry man who is armed fully. Shown first during the Galleries exhibition in Leicester the year 1916, Returning to the Trenches was among Nevinson’s paintings of the Great War that are recognized immediately. The futurism language that the artist proclaimed prior to 1914 is clearly carried in the image of the column of marching French soldiers together with the recurring pattern of the soldier’s legs and the exaggeration and animation of their movements by the extended force lines.2 The use of such manner by Nevinson, however, becomes more powerful in the monochrome of etching by combining the experimental techniques used to express movement with a great emotive subject. This kind of combination is able to simultaneously suggest.