Uploaded May 2024 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Go behind the painting with Art Deco at BehindThePainting.com
Exclusive videos on the art you love 🎨 🖼️ New content every month!
This piece is called Gassed by John Singer Sargent. We’re placed outside. The sun is setting over a row of 10 soldiers holding on to each other's shoulders. A medical orderly leads them to a medical post. The ground around them is covered with other wounded soldiers. Behind them is another group of blindfolded soldiers walking toward the tent. And amidst all this chaos, there's this tiny moment of calm – a soccer game in the distance, illuminated by the glow of sunset. It’s like Sargent slipped in this little detail to remind us that for these soldiers, this is just another day.
Sargent was in his sixties when The British Government asked him to create this painting. They wanted a piece that would showcase Anglo-American cooperation in the war. So of course they asked Sargent; an American who had spent the majority of his life in England. So Sargent left for France in July 1918 with his friend Henry Tonks. But finding the right subject for the painting proved more challenging than he expected. He finally found it when he witnessed the aftermath of a German bombardment using mustard gas. But when this painting was displayed in the Royal Academy in 1919, some loved it and some hated it.
But something about this painting doesn’t add up because Sargent never wanted anything to do with the war. He considered himself an internationalist and hated the idea of creating propaganda. But he did it anyway. So what made him change his mind?
Thanks for watching!
Credits:
Frost Waltz by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Arcadia - Wonders by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
smoke effect from Vecteezy
Go behind the painting with Art Deco at BehindThePainting.com
Exclusive videos on the art you love 🎨 🖼️ New content every month!
This piece is called Gassed by John Singer Sargent. We’re placed outside. The sun is setting over a row of 10 soldiers holding on to each other's shoulders. A medical orderly leads them to a medical post. The ground around them is covered with other wounded soldiers. Behind them is another group of blindfolded soldiers walking toward the tent. And amidst all this chaos, there's this tiny moment of calm – a soccer game in the distance, illuminated by the glow of sunset. It’s like Sargent slipped in this little detail to remind us that for these soldiers, this is just another day.
Sargent was in his sixties when The British Government asked him to create this painting. They wanted a piece that would showcase Anglo-American cooperation in the war. So of course they asked Sargent; an American who had spent the majority of his life in England. So Sargent left for France in July 1918 with his friend Henry Tonks. But finding the right subject for the painting proved more challenging than he expected. He finally found it when he witnessed the aftermath of a German bombardment using mustard gas. But when this painting was displayed in the Royal Academy in 1919, some loved it and some hated it.
But something about this painting doesn’t add up because Sargent never wanted anything to do with the war. He considered himself an internationalist and hated the idea of creating propaganda. But he did it anyway. So what made him change his mind?
Thanks for watching!
Credits:
Frost Waltz by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Arcadia - Wonders by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
smoke effect from Vecteezy
