Colour relief print
2014
Wilfred Owen’s well known poem ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ is a bitter condemnation of war and the suffering of men on the battlefield. He describes the effect of a gas attack on battle weary soldiers. The Germans began using tear gas early in 1914 followed by the pulmonary irritants chlorine and phosgene. Despite the Hague Treaty of 1899 banning the use of chemical weapons, this started an arms race culminating in the use of deadly mustard gas by both sides. Development of more toxic gases continued until the armistice of 1918 brought the war to a close.
The gas mask illustrates for me the evils of conflict which promote choices that displace ethical concerns. The moral arguments against using artillery shells that poison the air and bring agonising death were silenced by fears of defeat. Owen gives us a view of a war landscape that has reduced the patriotic soldier into a de-humanised and nightmarish figure. Breathing through a gauze filter saturated in chemicals and peering through glazed eyeholes, fearful of suffocation and death, Owen questions what he now sees as ‘the old lie’: Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori - it is sweet and right to die for your country.
I have freely developed my print based on an image of the German issue Lederschutzmaske GM17 (circa 1917) Equipping their troops with such masks was a step in the combatant’s increasing use of gas weapons in WW 1. John Morris
