How does Gassed (painting) elucidate its Completion?
The painting was completed in March 1919, and Sargent was paid his £600 fee. It was first displayed at the Royal Academy in London in 1919. It was voted picture of the year by the Royal Academy of Arts in 1919. The painting was not universally liked: E. M. Forster considered it too heroic. Winston Churchill praised its "brilliant genius and painful significance", but Virginia Woolf attacked its patriotism. It is now held by the Imperial War Museum, along with several charcoal studies for the painting. Other charcoal sketches are held by the Corcoran Gallery of Art. A small 10½ x 27¼ in. (26 x 69 cm) oil sketch, originally owned by Evan Charteris, was sold by Christie's in 2003 for £162,050 ($267,869).The painting provides a powerful testimony of the effects of chemical weapons, vividly described in Wilfred Owen's poem Dulce et Decorum Est. Mustard gas is a persistent vesicant gas, with effects that only become apparent several hours after exposure. It attacks the skin, the eyes and the mucous membranes, causing large skin blisters, blindness, choking and vomiting. Death, although rare, can occur within two days, but suffering may be prolonged over several weeks.Sargent's painting refers to Bruegel's 1568 work The Parable of the Blind, with the blind leading the blind, and it also alludes to Rodin's Burghers of Calais.
Dulce et Decorum Est Christie's Mustard gas blind leading the blind Royal Academy of Arts Winston Churchill The Parable of the Blind Virginia Woolf Corcoran Gallery of Art Evan Charteris gas Imperial War Museum London vesicant Wilfred Owen E. M. Forster Burghers of Calais