A REFLECTION BY RHYS FULLERTON
Standing in front of Henry Lintott’s 'Avatar' (1916) at the National Portrait Gallery, a stream of light creeps through the window and illuminates the face of the fallen soldier. It is a moment of majesty. For a painting that is rarely seen, its interaction with the gallery is now transcendental.
This painting has me transfixed; I can’t help but stand and stare at it. There is something oddly tranquil about the work. It has the ability to draw you in and make you contemplate. It is a perfect shrine of remembrance.
'Avatar' depicts a fallen soldier or knight of old being carried away by four bearers. The soldier, still clutching his sword, is wrapped in a black cloth; it’s as if Death has enshrouded him. The work's pastel colors set a sombre mood and enhance the impression of Death creeping over the soldier. The work is an elegiac meditation on the Fallen of the Great War. The bearers seem to drift or float as if they are angels taking the dead soldier off the battlefield.
I find this painting utterly breathtaking and particularly moving. I don’t usually find art moving – I can admire its beauty and its tone but it’s rare for me that it becomes emotive. The fact that I do in this case could be because it has rarely been seen and has only been shown to the public a handful of times since the War. It could be because the poet Wilfred Owen was so profoundly impressed by it that he described the work as the ‘finest picture now in the Edinburgh Gallery’. It could be because this painting is one that sums up the experience of war where words often fail.
Deep down it’s hard to imagine what these young men were witnessing on the battlefields; it’s hard to imagine what they went through and how they were affected afterwards. Lintott was affected enough to paint this beautiful and tragic painting. Many artists, poets and writers – including Wilfred Owen, Edward Wadsworth, Paul Nash and Siegfried Sassoon – have done the same. Owen saw this work while he was being treated for shell shock at the Craiglockhart War Hospital in Edinburgh in 1917. He would return to active service in 1918 and be killed in action.
Lintott manages to remind us of the sacrifice that all men, women and children go through in war, but without making it obvious, without making a grand statement, by being truthful. This painting comes from the heart but is triggered by something in his memory. What was witnessed was too terrifying to paint; therefore another allegory had to be found. Where a war photographer captured the horrors, a painter had to find another imaginative form.
With 'Avatar', Lintott creates beauty in its sadness. He could have painted the carnage but instead depicts a knight of old, as if to say this was happening hundreds of years ago and it will continue to happen hundreds of years from now.
My grandfather, a soldier in the Second World War, passed away this year at the age of 88. Perhaps I find this painting moving because I think of him when I look at it. The experience of war shaped the person that he was; it was an experience that he would never forget but would reluctantly talk about. I wish he could have seen 'Avatar',and hope he would have regarded it as a symbol of remembrance as much as I do.
Remembering the Great War, a fantastic tribute and exhibition, continues at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery until 5 July 2015 (admission free). See also John Ross Maclean’s review here.
[Image: Henry Lintott RSA (1877–1965) ‘Avatar’ 1916, oil on canvas, Royal Scottish Academy of Art & Architecture (Diploma Collection). ‘Conserved with the aid of a grant from the AIM Pilgrim Trust Conservation Scheme’.]