... This vast military machine that we had watched assemble itself in Kuwait with its hardware and its discipline and its resolution and unshakeable belief in the virtue of its mission. It was composed, in part at least, of boys who - more than anything - missed their mothers. I think of those two young men whose names I never learned when I look at Nevinsons Paths of Glory. Its title is taken from Thomas Grays Elegy Written in a Country Church-Yard. The boast of heraldry, the pomp of powr, / And all that beauty, all that wealth eer gave / Awaits alike thinevitable hour. / The paths of glory lead but to the grave. Government censors did not like Paths of Glory. They judged it bad for morale and refused to pay Nevinson for it. But he included it anyway in the first exhibition of his war paintings in London early in 1918, with a brown paper strip across the canvas carrying the word censored. He was reprimanded both for exhibiting a censored painting and, bizarrely, for unauthorised use of the word censored in a public place. But the painting was bought, during that exhibition, by the Imperial War Museum, where it remains.
Posted on: Tue, 24 Jun 2014 14:42:21 +0000