Joanne McNeill: Getting war down to a fine art

Joanne McNeil

I suppose I'm too old to be an official war artist now.

Our defence forces probably don't send old ladies to the frontlines with uniformed batman/drivers to carry easels hold parasols and serve drinks and, of course, one would rather not constitute a liability in already difficult circumstances.

Anyway, in the era of the ubiquitous cellphie (sic, not exactly a neologism but a nice new spelling maybe?), contemporary warzones are so thoroughly documented that paintings might be superfluous, compared with past wars when imagery was less prolific, although current NZ Army artist Matt Gauldie reckons paintings still count because while photographs capture single moments, paintings can encompass many; which is a fair point.

It's been a career with romantic appeal ever since first seeing the ineffable images of parachutes falling from the skies created by Peter McIntyre, NZ's official World War II artist.

Years ago, editing a community newspaper's Anzac Day pages and looking for a suitable illustration, I tried to obtain official permission to use one of the lovely McIntyre images but budget and time available precluded, so I improvised with a quick backdrop (blue sky with a few clouds) painted on to a plywood square and a small pile of sand on to which I sprinkled some black ashes then (carefully) crashed one of my son's model World War II planes. Photographed badly, the desert plane crash picture was indistinguishable from a bought one.

I'm not sure if Gauldie has joined our troops in Syria yet to illuminate the situation but from this distance our military presence there seems as ludicrous as the ill-fated Anzac assault on Gallipoli - from which the enduring image is Horace Moore-Jones' watercolour (painted later in England) of Simpson and his donkey bearing a wounded soldier down a narrow track.

Certainly justification of our military presence in the Middle East requires a clearer understanding of who - among the many religious, tribal, criminal, national and political factions involved - is fighting whom, and why, than is discernible from the cacophony emanating from current sources.

Those who prefer to demonise others by blaming Islam per se for the recent carnage in Paris have characterised it as an attack on happiness ... a kind of extension of the Vice and Virtue Ministry under the Taliban regime in Afghanistan which outlawed the likes of television, kite flying, girls' education, pianos and dolls.

Strangely though, until the Paris incident, I had not noticed these same staunch defenders of fun leaping to protect us from the health/safety/security Taliban within who daily corrode freedoms and happiness at home by imposing the endless scaremongering (terrorism by any other name) which has curtailed many former pleasures - such as pub crawls, cream cakes, smoking, sun bathing and fireworks - and seeks to replace them with the sanctimonious hair shirt of guilt, fear, obedience and vigorous exercise.

Their gallant show of concern for women's rights elsewhere is hypocritical too while equal pay remains a chimera at home.

I still have the handy little all-purpose blue sky backdrop, which seems to say, whatever our differences, we petty humans are essentially soft naked creatures under a common sky. I guess I'll just have to keep deploying it behind the barricades at home.