Menin Road from Hooge Crater by George Edmund Butler

Menin Road from Hooge Crater by George Edmund Butler, circa 1918.

This painting was designed for the New Zealand War Memorial Museum to show New Zealanders the true nature of the environment in which their soldiers had fought and died. Its explicit portrayal of the violence inflicted by the war provokes a feeling of shock and horror. But Butler also managed to find elements of undeniable beauty and grace in the broken forms of the decimated forest and the striking, blood red glow of the turbulent sky.

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