Hangin' on the Old Barbed Wire

20" x 16", oil on canvas, 2014

Trench songs feature in a few pieces in my World War One painting project, but they're most prominent in this one and in "Why Are We Here?", having some of the words scratched into the paint.

I could have found image reference of an actual soldier tangled in barbed wire for this, but I decided to look through my photos from my trip to Italy last March, knowing there I'd taken a shot or two of Michelangelo's Pietà. My idea was to extract Jesus from Mary's embrace and string him up in barbed wire for my Remembrance section, emphasizing the theme of sacrifice. My sketch of the figure in my notebook looked wobbly and rough, but nice and alive and reminded me of Egon Schiele's drawing style, so I then chose to emulate his style for the figure in the final piece.

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