I remember that painting or was it a photo of those poor blinded soldiers having experienced mustard gas. I saw it in grade school and it was at the time very informational only, as I couldn't really imagine what it must have been like. I kinda got it was horrible. But I can imagine it now that I've been around for decades and have seen a bit of anguish. But in keeping with the synchronicity of what I see here in the forums and what I see in my life, there was an even more poignant moment that I experienced on tele just within a week or two that relates directly to this painting you did.
I was just watching a moment in the WWII detective show Foyle's War in which a Chief Detective Inspector from a different district than Foyle, but of the same rank and age, who had a surly attitude throughout the episode was announcing to Foyle that he was giving it all up because he had given up on humanity. He'd seen too much. To illustrate his reasoning, he was explaining to Foyle who had also been in WWI, the moment when the gas was first used, and he had been in those trenches. . . and the lads had no idea what it was -- how surreal were the clouds slowly moving toward them and they just stood there. . . until the screaming. What a horrible and powerful monolog. This painting gets that, probably all the more profound owing to the atmospheric look of it as if the gas were still lingering, which of course it couldn't be. But it drives the essence home through the hazy technique you used.
Powerful, Mr Ploos.
"Not a bit is wasted and the best is yet to come. . ." -- remembered from a dream
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its two Lord's at the table
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