Posts Tagged ‘Canada and the First World War’

There is no living memory of what happened July 1, 1916, on the Beaumont Hamel battlefield in France, the day 801 members of the Newfoundland Regiment walked into a hailstorm of machine-gun bullets. History books record the facts and figures—it took only half an hour to decimate the regiment; only 68 answered roll call the next day.

This August the weather in France is perfect—blue skies for photographs and moody clouds for paintings. I came to Europe to paint. World-class museums are filled with landscapes of the Norman and Flemish fields. This land is valuable both for its artistic and agricultural production. But it is cherished for another reason. This is where the world came to fight, not once but twice. More than 111,650 Canadians died as a result of the First and Second World Wars. They are buried here. As an artist, the juxtaposition of war and peace interests me. I imagine European citizens picnicking with their families on the same shores Canada stormed—busy with modern lives on old battlefields. I want to see if remembrance exists in the off-season—when no one knows company is coming.