Moore-Jones' Gallipoli landscapes

The terrible country towards Suvla, by Horace Millichamp Moore-Jones, 1915

Other Moore-Jones Gallipoli landscapes (click on thumbnails to see full images)

Horace Moore-Jones' Gallipoli landscapes

At the outbreak of war in 1914, Horace Moore-Jones was living in Britain. He was 42 years old, but gave his age as 32 so he could enlist in the New Zealand Expeditionary Force (NZEF). Moore-Jones was sent to Gallipoli to make drawings of the area because there were no useful maps. Towards the end of 1915 his drawing hand was injured, but while recovering in England he somehow managed to produce nearly 80 watercolours of Gallipoli.

While Moore-Jones' paintings provide a topographically correct impression of the Gallipoli landscape, they present a peculiarly sterilized version of the campaign. There are only a few small indications that these sun-drenched vistas were actually vicious battlefields. Instead, Moore-Jones has deliberately focused his compositions on the imposing and inhospitable physicality of the terrain, which proved such a menacing obstacle for the Anzacs. The figures of the soldiers are completely dwarfed by these sharp cliffs and deep valleys, and the Ottoman soldiers – particularly their lethal snipers – are totally hidden from view, as they were in reality.

• Read biography of Horace Moore-Jones