美国国家公共电台 NPR Even In 'The War To End All Wars,' There Was Art Coming From The Trenches

AILSA CHANG, HOST:

A hundred years ago, this country entered the first global war, World War I. That ugly, dirty, agonizing 1 conflict cost millions of lives and changed the world. The Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum is observing the centennial with an exhibit called "Artist Soldiers." NPR special correspondent Susan Stamberg reports.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "OVER THERE")

BILLY MURRAY: (Singing) Over there, over there. Send the word, send the word, over there. That the Yanks are coming, the Yanks are coming.

SUSAN STAMBERG, BYLINE 2: The Yanks didn't come until three years into the war and fought for less than a year. They joined French, Russian, British, other troops fighting Germany, Austria, Hungary and the Ottoman Empire. World War I was the first modern industrial war - large numbers of tanks, heavy artillery 3, planes. And most tragically 4, it was a war of trenches 6.

PETER JAKAB: Hundreds of thousands of people died just to advance a few yards.

STAMBERG: Peter Jakab, chief curator at Air and Space, says troops dug those trenches along the western front, from Belgium through France to Switzerland, to dodge 7 the constant shelling and machine-gun fire, and then waited in those trenches until orders came to move - with the troops, waiting, professional artists sent to war by the U.S. government.

JAKAB: These eight illustrators were the first true combat artists who were really capturing war in the moment, in a first-hand-experience sort of way.

STAMBERG: With pens, pencils, charcoal 8, watercolors, even oil paints, men known for their magazine illustrations showed Yanks in the field, huddling 9 against gunfire, entering enemy-held villages, standing 10 guard. In Harvey Dunn's 1918 oil "The Sentry," a young soldier pops up from the trench 5, exhaustion 11 muddying his face, his eyes almost blank.

JAKAB: You see in his eyes what would later become known as the thousand-yard stare.

STAMBERG: Alone with his rifle, some grenades and his thoughts. Before World War I, war art was created long after the conflict itself and focused on generals, nobles, Napoleon. Here, you see the grunts 12, the injured, the mud. The Air and Space exhibit also has objects from the war - a kitchen chair outfitted 13 with bicycle wheels into a primitive 14 French wheelchair. There's barbed wire, a shovel 15, a periscope 16.

JAKAB: You know, it was very dangerous to pop your head up above the trenches.

STAMBERG: "Artist Soldiers" is also about art made by soldiers themselves - trench art fashioned from spent casings. There's a miniature table set for guests.

JAKAB: The table top is the bottom of a large artillery shell. And then the legs and the cups and pitcher 17 on the table are made from bullets.

(SOUNDBITE OF VIDEO)

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: All around you, you see objects of daily life...

STAMBERG: A monitor shows what may be the most dramatic part of the exhibit, recent pictures by National Geographic 18 photographer Jeff Gusky, taken in near darkness in parts of a vast network of underground cities, carved by World War I troops inside ancient stone quarries 19 that run deep within the French countryside. Gusky says the spaces go back centuries before the war.

JEFF GUSKY: They were created by quarrymen getting stone for castles, cathedrals, fortresses 21.

STAMBERG: The World War I trenches had been dug just near the quarries. Armies on both sides turned the quarries into shelters.

GUSKY: They brought modern technology underground and created cities - rail, telecommunications, electricity, hospitals, food systems, theaters and amazing artwork. They're so big that you even see street signs.

STAMBERG: One of the spaces Gusky photographed is over 25 miles long. In addition to providing logistical support underground, soldiers made places for worship.

GUSKY: An underground chapel 22 where soldiers would pray and then go up the stairs and fight.

STAMBERG: Into the quarry 20 walls, soldiers from New England carved notes to their loved ones, scores of a Red Sox victory - they beat the Yankees 7 to 4. French soldiers chiseled 23 images of their prime minister, George Clemenceau. Germans honored their military chief of staff, Paul Von Hindenburg. Fighting men also carved their dreams and desires.

GUSKY: You see the soldiers' inner lives - the things they value. This is a beautiful abstract nude 24 that could be in an art museum.

STAMBERG: Could be by Matisse that someone has carved into that wall.

GUSKY: He's thinking about beauty in a time of mass destruction.

(SOUNDBITE OF MICK SOFTLEY'S "AFTER THE THIRD WORLD WAR IS OVER")

STAMBERG: Whether saluting 25 their leaders or tapping their fantasies, on these ancient quarry walls burrowed 26 beneath the French fields, a century ago, the troops of World War I left messages for the future.

GUSKY: They expressed their inner lives on the walls of the spaces when the world on the surface was turning to hell.

STAMBERG: "Artist Soldiers," at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum until November, is filled with little-known artifacts of World War I. That war ended in 1918. In its day, it was called the war to end all wars.