A bold bird’s eye view: the Battle of Alexanderat Issus, painted by Albrecht Altdorfer, 1529. — **A bold bird’s eye view: the *Battle of Alexander*at Issus, painted by Albrecht Altdorfer, 1529.** Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen

Inventing the battlefield

Paintings of battles often tell us more about the political backdrop than about military successes or acts of war. What they actually reveal are changing understandings of history.

Barbara Basting

Barbara Basting worked as a cultural editor and currently heads the visual arts division in the City of Zurich’s Culture Department.

These days, we struggle with historical scenes, especially those depicting battles. Only artistically exceptional works are spared the fate of ending up in storage. One such example is Albrecht Altdorfer’s Battle of Alexander with its epic bird’s eye view. The painting’s fame was fuelled in part by the anecdote that Napoleon stole it during one of his art raids in Munich and had it displayed in his own bathroom. From a cultural history perspective, even artistically obsolete battle paintings can be interesting because they tell us about changing views of history. They also teach us about the rules governing the production of historical fiction and visual propaganda. We always need to consider what story is being presented, from whose perspective and for what purpose. Apparently dusty and boring historical scenes often tell us more than you might think at first glance. Let us take the example of a well-known and popular depiction of the Battle of Sempach of 1386, painted in the 19th century by Zurich artist Ludwig Vogel (1788–1879) and entitled The Confederates with Winkelried’s Corpse. The painting played an important part in making the Battle of Sempach and Winkelried himself into national legends. Modern insights would suggest that this is in fact a historical misrepresentation, like the story of William Tell. Nowadays, Vogel’s work is only featured in special exhibitions, not least due to its poor artistic quality. In the 19th century, however, it was presented at national exhibitions, discussed, and much replicated and adapted by the artist and his contemporaries. This was possible because Vogel provided the emerging nation of Switzerland with a role model at just the right time in the shape of Winkelried – the martyr who sacrificed his life for the cause. Historical paintings are often about wish fulfilment.

The Confederates with Winkelried’s Corpse, painted by Ludwig Vogel, 1841. — *The Confederates with Winkelried’s Corpse*, painted by Ludwig Vogel, 1841. Kunstmuseum Basel

Somewhat unusually for such an ambitious historical scene, Vogel’s painting was not an official commission. It was actually produced for Jakob Melchior Ziegler, a teacher, politician, map publisher and patron of the arts from Winterthur, who was part of the patriotic movement and among other things a campaigner for a national monument. Vogel himself was also from a patriotically minded and wealthy household (his father was Zurich master confectioner David Vogel, who later sold his business to a certain Mr Sprüngli). He was therefore able to dedicate himself fully to art without having to worry about making a living. Aesthetically speaking, Vogel was guided by the Nazarenes’ late Romantic, idealised conception of history. The group of artists to which he belonged during his formative years in Vienna and Rome sought to tease out role models from history to provide guidance in the present. Every effort was made to underscore the authenticity and importance of the selected motifs. For example, Ludwig Vogel would do this by studying historical chronicles. As a basis for his works he would go to armouries and sketch pieces of armour, as shown by his extensive estate at the Swiss National Museum.

**Pencil sketch with watercolour by Ludwig Vogel showing a suit of armour from the 15th century in the Armoury Lucerne, undated.** Swiss National Museum

The preliminary studies preceding the final version painted for Ziegler in 1841 are testament to the lengthy process involved in developing the painting’s composition, which he reused in later works. The fact that Vogel took part in a contest held in Nidwalden in 1853 to design a Winkelried monument adds another layer to the convoluted story behind the work.

**Vogel’s design for the Winkelried monument in Stans, 1840.** Swiss National Museum

In his painting The Confederates with Winkelried’s Corpse, Vogel does a few things right. Instead of a teeming and complex battle scene, he constructs a key moment after the battle. To focus our attention he grants us a privileged perspective, right in front of Winkelried’s body alongside his comrades-in-arms who are shaken by his death. However, the artificiality of the scene immediately jumps out at us, at least to modern-day sensibilities. There is not even a hint of visual humour to offset the exaggerated pathos. The theatrical poses of Vogel’s figures appear excessive and contrived. Vogel’s attention to detail is a double-edged sword. He uses it to highlight the general factual accuracy and authenticity of the depicted history, but paradoxically, his hyper-perfection achieves the exact opposite effect. The peacock-crested helmets of the fallen Habsburg soldiers, the polished halberds and the helmets and armour all look like props straight out of a museum display cabinet. Also, the carefully contrasting colours of the fighters’ suspiciously spotless tunics – a nod to the Nazarenes’ role model, Raphael – are too calculated. The whole scene is so picture-perfect and features so many Swiss crosses, it is more reminiscent of a fashion shoot than a bloody battlefield. Vogel also struggles with anatomy: his Winkelried looks like a huge sleeping baby who is cuddling up to a teddy bear rather than enemy spears. Fittingly, the fallen fighters to the left and right on the edge of the scene look like carelessly discarded dolls. Above all, though, the painter diverts attention away from the present with his idealistically distorted and kitschy historical collage. Let us compare it with a work by Francisco de Goya (1746–1828), which was painted at the time of the Napoleonic Wars and captures wartime atrocities.

A focus on wartime atrocities: The Third of May 1808, painted by Francisco de Goya, 1814. — **A focus on wartime atrocities: *The Third of May 1808*, painted by Francisco de Goya, 1814.** Museo Nacional del Prado

Historical paintings are therefore not always about wish fulfilment; they often serve as a distraction from an unpleasant reality. What would Vogel’s Winkelried have looked like if, as a young painter, he hadn’t looked towards Rome to re-invent the Middle Ages with his Nazarene friends, but looked to Paris instead? The French capital was an artistic hive of activity in the years after the Revolution. One of the reasons for this was that Napoleon used art for propaganda purposes far more confidently and purposefully than the Swiss, who were still grappling with their identity. For example, in 1807, Napoleon launched a competition for a depiction of the battle in the Prussian town of Eylau. The winning entry was the monumental painting Napoléon on the Battlefield of Eylau (1808) by Antoine-Jean Gros (1771–1835). The painting still hangs in the Louvre in the wing where the major Academy exhibitions were traditionally held, but is overshadowed by its famous neighbours, in particular Théodore Géricault’s The Raft of the Medusa and Eugène Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People.

Napoléon on the Battlefield of Eylau, painted by Antoine-Jean Gros, 1808. — *Napoléon on the Battlefield of Eylau*, painted by Antoine-Jean Gros, 1808. Musée du Louvre

Gros’ painting not only depicts a battlefield, but also tells us about the conflicts between art and politics at the time. Ostensibly the painting is geared towards Napoleon’s contest, which was all about his glorification. The Battle of Eylau (now part of Russia) involved very heavy losses and militarily speaking was a disastrous defeat for the French. Napoleon therefore feared losing support for further conscriptions and campaigns. Gros’ successful re-writing of history hinged on not showing any injured French soldiers. It was about depicting Napoleon as a cross between the ‘gentle emperor’ from Antiquity and the stereotyped figure of a blessing Christ who even takes care of wounded enemies (in stark contradiction to witness accounts). This implies that this gracious ruler will be even more concerned about his own soldiers. The egomaniac Napoleon liked Gros’ painting. He obviously overlooked the injured men and bodies in the foreground, and in particular the soldier bleeding to death in the bottom right, whose unsettling gaze rests on us and makes Napoleon’s rather other-worldly presence fade further into the background. It is not only these sorts of visual cues that make Gros’ painting appear somewhat more authentic than Vogel’s tableau. The tonal colour palette, not to mention the snow-covered Russian victims dying in agony in the foreground, give a sense of the real debacle on the battlefield. Above all, these contradictions discreetly undermine the propaganda purpose of the painting. Attentive contemporaries noticed this straight away. However, such elements reveal that Gros was not entirely at ease in his role as celebrated painter. The progressive unease with the nationalistic genre of battle painting became even more striking in the 19th century in the work of Ernest Meissonier (1815–1891). The French painter, who was popular with the bourgeoisie, painted one of his most famous works between 1861 and 1875, which is now also in storage: 1807, Friedland.

1807, Friedland, painted by Ernest Meissonier between 1861 and 1875. — *1807, Friedland*, painted by Ernest Meissonier between 1861 and 1875. The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Meissonier’s admirers rate his attention to detail and the authenticity that this lends his works. Like Gros, Meissonier chose a famous Napoleonic battle for 1807, Friedland, but one which was triumphant and also historic to his generation. And like Vogel, he shares a love of the meticulously reconstructed prop and takes it to the extreme. Art historian Peter Geimer recently described Meissonier’s devices in more detail. The painter apparently built collections of historical objects and textiles. He even acquired a replica of one of Napoleon’s uniforms and would put it on and sit on a wooden horse to “slip into’ the role of the general. Even his contemporaries were annoyed by the excessive mimicry, which – as opposed to Vogel – was associated with a complete indifference to the scene being depicted. Emile Zola even derided Meissonier as the “official painter of Lilliput”. Considering the momentousness of the Napoleonic wars to European history, these details were just pointless embellishment, even at the time. Geimer calls them “traces with no particular message” that add nothing to the narrative, and are just dull and boring. Not necessarily what you expect from a battle scene. From a media history perspective, however, Meissonier’s work is noteworthy because he took the aesthetic principle from the newly-emerging medium of photography, meant to objectively register and document, and applied the camera’s view to painting. When the contemporary art critic Jules Claretie noted in 1873 that official battle painting was dead, he was right. It was replaced on the one hand by depictions that pushed the illusionist staging favoured by Vogel and Meissonier to the limits in the form of panoramas. They sought to place the onlooker at the heart of the action, like people can experience today in the Bourbaki Panorama in Lucerne.

**3D figures in the foreground, painting in the background: the Bourbaki Panorama transports the onlooker to the supposed heart of the action.** Wikimedia / Alessandro Gallo

Henceforth, photographers were responsible for documenting what really happened. Roger Fenton opened a new chapter in the representation of war and battles in his photographs of the Crimean War in 1853. And more recently, this has culminated in the live-streamed footage of scenes filmed with Go-Pro cameras on the helmets of soldiers fighting in Ukraine. The fact that hyper-realistic forms of representation such as panoramas and photography have also been used to magnificent effect for reproductions, propaganda purposes, falsifications and all types of constructions of history, is another story. Vogel was definitely ahead of his time here, too, as Heinrich Thommen argued in the detailed study on Vogel’s work. Not long before he died, Vogel allowed Zurich photographer Johannes Ganz to photograph a series of his compositions, including a later version of his Winkelried from 1856, for a publication.

More of: Modern Age Politics War/battle Culture Art

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