ghosts of menin gate - the australian war … ghosts of menin... · issue #1 (january 2012)...

VOLUNTARY GUIDES BACKGROUNDER Number 104 Issue # 1 January 2012

GHOSTS OF MENIN GATE

This BACKGROUNDER replaces earlier hardcopy BACKGROUNDERS : # 26 September 199, The Menin Gate Lions , # 54 Issue #1 December 2001 , Will Longstaff - Art and Remembrance and # 67 Issue #1 February 2003 ,The Gate of Eternal Memories, all of which should now be disgarded.

See also: http://www.ww1westernfront.gov.au/menin-gate/index.html http://www.greatwar.co.uk/ypres-salient/memorial-menin-gate.htm

PJH

ISSUE #1 (January 2012)

THE MENIN GATE 1914-1927

THE UNDAMAGED LIONS IN SITU ON THE MENIN ROAD COMPLETE WITH SHIELDS AND MOUNTED ON THEIR BRICK PLINTHS, BEFORE THE SHELLING OF YPRES IN MAY 1914 WW1.. BELGIAN SOLDIERS MARCH THROUGH THE MENIN GATE 28 MAY 1914, JUST MONTHS BEFORE THE GERMAN INVASION OF BELGIUM IN AUGUST 1914.THE OLD MEDIEVAL ‘GATE’ WAS BY THIS TIME MERELY A GAP IN THE 17TH CENTURY DEFENSIVE RAMPARTS OF THE TOWN FROM WHICH THE ROAD RAN TO THE TOWN.

MENIN GATE MEMORIAL. UNVEILING CEREMONY (POSSIBLY BRITISH OFFICIAL, SECURED BY CAPT. R.W. MURPHY, IMP WAR GRAVES COMMISSION).


BACKGROUNDER # 104


FOREWORD

Ghosts of Menin Gate has rescoped a number of earlier hard copy BACKGROUNDERS on the Menin Gate to consolidate that material and assist Guides whilst in the Commemorative Area and later in the Galleries. In this context the following dot points are relevant:

• Tomb of the Unknown Australian Soldier The Unknown Australian Soldier came to the Menin Gate on the evening of 2 November 1993. His coffin was borne on the shoulders of a bearer party of six men of the Australian Defence Force. There he was placed on the ground under the great arches of the memorial and looked down upon by the thousands of names of the ‘missing’. His remains were subsequently returned to Australia and entombed in the Hall of Memory on Remembrance Day 1993.

• Roll of Honour

The Menin Gate Memorial to the Missing bears the names of 54,389 officers and men from United Kingdom and Commonwealth Forces (except New Zealand and

Newfoundland) who fell in the Ypres Salient before 16th August 1917 and who have no known grave. The panels contain the names of 6,191 who were men of the Australian Imperial Force .The 45th Battalion, New South Wales, had the highest number of 'missing': 194. the panel showing the greatest Australian loss is that for the units of the Australian Machine Gun Corps - 244 names.

• Menin Gate Lions Hundreds of thousands of Allied troops marched past the Lions on their way to the killing fields of the Great War and as noted above, many never returned. To put this in perspective, in three months in 1917, half a million men died at Passchendaele which is just up the Menin Road from Ypres. Today all visitors to the Australian War Memorial walk past the Lions, that were presented to the Memorial in 1936, on entering the Memorial as did those Diggers nearly a century ago.

• Menin Gate at Midnight

With the exception of General Bridges, no war dead were returned to Australia after the Great War and indeed none were returned until we were well involved in the Vietnam War. So when Longstaff’s Menin Gate at Midnight toured capital and regional cities around Australia in 1928-29, it was viewed by thousands, whom for many this was the closing for the loss of their loved ones.

Peter Hugonnet Voluntary Guide January 2012


BACKGROUNDER # 104


CONTENTS

Foreword

• The Menin Gate Lions (BACKGROUNDER # 26 September 1999) • The Gate of Eternal Memories

(BACKGROUNDER # 67 February 2003) • Will Longstaff - Art and Remembrance

• (BACKGROUNDER # 54 December 2001) • Will Longstaff's Menin Gate at midnight (Ghosts of Menin Gate)

(AWM Encyclopedia .January 2012)

Longstaff’s Menin Gate at Midnight Longstaff's painting was purchased by Lord Woolavington in 1928 for 2,000 guineas and was immediately presented to the Australian Government.The price was considerable..

After Menin Gate was displayed in London, by royal command viewed by King George V and his family at Buckingham Palace, and shown in Manchester and Glasgow, it was sent to Australia. It was placed on display during 1928-29 in capital and regional cities around Australia, where it was seen by record crowds.

One thousand reproductions of the painting were made in 1928 under Longstaff's direction, and signed by the artist. He retained two hundred of these to cover his costs and presented four hundred to the RSSILA for sale through the Australian War Memorial. He gave the remaining four hundred to the Earl Haig Fund, all to be sold at 10 guineas each. The four hundred allotted to Australia were sold by October 1929, at which time the Memorial produced a cheaper version which was distributed widely, door to door, through a marketing company. The salesmen were provided with a text learn by heart which reminded those who had friends and family that 'He is not missing. He is here'.

WILL LONGSTAFFA R T A N D R E M E M B R A N C E

Will Longstaff painted Menin Gate at midnight after he had attended theunveiling ceremony of the Menin Gate memorial at the entrance of theBelgian town of Ypres on 24 July 1927. This memorial was dedicated tothe 350,000 men of the British and Empire forces who had died in thebattles around Ypres. Longstaff was so moved by the ceremony that,during a midnight walk along the Menin Road, he imagined a vision ofsteel-helmeted spirits rising from the moonlit cornfields. It is said that,following his return to London, he painted the work in one session, whilestill under psychic influence. He may have been influenced by Mrs MaryHorsburgh, who had worked in a British canteen during the war. She hadmet him during this evening walk, and told him that she could feel “herdead boys” all around her.1

Longstaff painted the scene almost entirely in hues of blue, which helpssuggest a midnight scene. He constructed it on a traditional, land–sky format,placing the pale memorial boldly on the horizon, and portraying the host ofghostly soldiers through an impressionistic outline of bodies and helmets. Inthe immediate foreground, he depicted a cornfield strewn with blood-redpoppies and in the far distance he placed a small, silhouetted building withwindows ablaze. He used well-known motifs to trigger emotion. The scarletpoppies are flowers that could be found in the Flanders fields, but they alsocarry the traditional connotations of blood and remembrance; they representa floral blanket covering the bloodied bodies of unknown soldiers and at the

Will Longstaff Menin Gate at midnight (Ghosts of Menin Gate)1927oil on canvas 140.5 x 271.8 cm (9807)

Will Longstaff’s Menin Gate at midnight (Ghosts of Menin Gate),painted in 1927, is undoubtedly one of the best-known paintings inthe Australian War Memorial’s art collection. In the years followingthe First World War, the tribute to sacrifice evoked by this painting,combined with its spiritualist overtones, struck exactly the right chordwith many Australians who had lost family and friends in the war.

N o v e m b e r 2 0 0 1 – F e b r u a r y 2 0 0 2

same time, like the paper poppies worn onRemembrance Day, they are a tribute from theliving to the dead.2 The steel-helmeted soldiersrising from the cornfields extend the range ofvisual emblems: the harvest of men, the steel-helmeted crosses covering the graves of manysoldiers, and the helmeted bayonets raised incheer and victory.3 These symbols add resonanceto the image. Some people see and respond to onemotif, others to another, and this contributes tothe wide appeal of the painting: it is many thingsto many people.

In his wartime sketch book Longstaff depicted amutilated human leg lying in a poppy field, apoignant conjunction of a brutal fact of warwith one of the delights of nature. In anothersketch he drew French children placing flowersbeside the helmeted grave of an unknownBritish soldier at Villers-Bretonneux. This showsus that Longstaff was interested in thejuxtaposition of war dead with floral tributeseven before he painted Menin Gate.

In the 1920s, when Longstaff painted Menin Gate,spiritualism was in vogue, and many who wishedto communicate with relatives and friends whohad died in battle found consolation in its tenets.One of Longstaff’s subsequent patrons, Sir ArthurConan Doyle, visited Australia in 1920 topromote the spiritualist message, and he receivedmany letters of thanks from mothers who hadlost their sons in the war and to whom he hadgiven courage.4 Longstaff was by no means thefirst artist to portray spiritualist ideas. On ANZACDay 1927, the Melbourne Herald published acartoon by Will Dyson, A voice from ANZAC:

“Funny thing, Bill—I keep thinking I hear menmarching!”, which portrayed the spirits of twoAustralian soldiers seated on the shore atGallipoli, a graphic visualization of survival afterbodily death. This cartoon had a powerfulemotional impact at the time and, as a result, theHerald printed a thousand reproductions whichthey presented to the Victorian branch of theReturned Sailors’ and Soldiers’ Imperial League ofAustralia (RSSILA) to distribute to its members. In1929, Dyson produced another variation on thistheme, Xmas memories, which portrayed aswagman and his dog accompanied by twoghostly diggers.5 In February 1927, before eitherDyson or Longstaff created their images ofexistence after death, Stanley Spencer caused asensation in London with Resurrection, Cookham[1924–26]. It differs from Longstaff’s and Dyson’sworks in that the scene was intended as ametaphor, to suggest that paradise can beexperienced on earth: to affirm the joys of lifeafter the horrors of war. Nonetheless, Spencer’spainting was a product of a period in which therewas intense interest in spiritualism, the sameenvironment that fostered Longstaff’s painting.

Lord Woolavington purchased Longstaff’spainting in 1928 for 2000 guineas andimmediately presented it to the AustralianGovernment. The price was considerable:Streeton sold his celebrated Golden Summer,Eaglemont of 1889 just four years earlier for halfthe price of the Longstaff painting; and theBritish Government bought Stanley Spencer’sResurrection, Cookham in 1927 for £1000.

Will LongstaffImmortal shrine(Eternal silence) 1928oil on canvas 137 x 270 cm (14196)

After displaying Menin Gate in London,Manchester and Glasgow, in 1928–29 theMemorial toured it to capital and regional citiesaround Australia, where it was seen by recordcrowds.6 They produced one thousandreproductions of the painting under Longstaff’sdirection, which were signed by the artist. InOctober 1929 the Memorial produced a cheaperversion that was distributed widely, door-to-door,through a marketing company. They providedthe salesmen with a text they learned by heartwhich reminded those who had friends andfamily that “He is not missing. He is here”.

Following the success of Menin Gate, Longstaffpainted several other works on a similar theme.In Immortal shrine (Eternal silence) [1928] hedepicted ghostly soldiers marching past theCenotaph in London on Remembrance Day1928. Mrs Trevor Hedberg and the MissesWinifred and Hope Kellow, daughters of the lateMr Charles Brown Kellow, who was a schoolboycontemporary of Longstaff’s in Ballarat,presented this work to the Memorial in 1943.He based Immortal shrine on a watercolourdepicting the Cenotaph on a rainy day. In thewatercolour he represented similar reflectionson the paving, but he peopled it withsilhouetted figures of ordinary men and womenrather than with ghostly soldiers. In Immortalshrine he depicted the Cenotaph itself as aghostly presence, gauntly white in front of thesomber blue-black buildings that dissolve intothe horizon. In another work, Ghosts of VimyRidge [1931], Longstaff portrayed the spirits ofservicemen of the Canadian Corps. This work

clearly resembles Menin Gate in its composition:the memorial on Vimy Ridge standsdramatically on the summit beneath which theshimmering spirits of Canadian soldiers gatherin the silvery moonlight. In a fourth work,Carillon [1932], he showed the ghosts of NewZealand soldiers on the beaches of Belgiumlistening to carillon bells in their own country.

Longstaff is also said to have painted two otherworks depicting phantom soldiers near a coast.The first, The rearguard (The spirit of ANZAC)[1929], presents a ghostly array of soldiers liningup near the beach at Gallipoli in the bleakdawn, with departing transports and warshipsbarely visible on the misty horizon.7 Thesecond, Drake’s drum, is said to have beenpainted in response to the evacuation of Britishtroops from Dunkirk in 1940, and to show theSussex coast haunted by the spirits ofservicemen rising to answer “Drake’s drum”.8

As the present whereabouts of The rearguard areunknown, and given the similarity of thedescriptions of the image of the two works, it ispossible that Longstaff changed the title fromThe rearguard to Drake’s drum; that is, it may bethat the two works are one and the same. (Suchre-titling of works was common amongLongstaff’s contemporaries).

The fame accorded Menin Gate did not spread toLongstaff’s other spiritualist works, partly becausethey were not publicly displayed. Ghosts of VimyRidge remained in seclusion for many years in aparliamentary committee room. Carillon wasgiven to the New Zealand Government in 1934but has rarely been displayed since then.

Will LongstaffGhosts of Vimy Ridgec. 1931oil on canvas 138 x 270.2 cmCanadian House ofCommons Collection (AN: O-4714)

However, even if the Canadian and New Zealandworks had been displayed, they might not haveevoked a strong public response. Menin Gate has a bolder composition and morepowerful imagery than do Longstaff’s laterpaintings. His evocative means of depicting thewar dead gradually became little more than aformula. The ANZAC tradition, the belief that theFirst World War was a watershed in Australianhistory, and that those who died on foreign soildid so to create a greater Australia, gave thispainting an added, almost religious, significance.The painting’s dramatic display at the Memorialand the publicity it received during its Australiantour, as well as the wide distribution of colourreproductions in aid of charitable causes, alsocontributed to its reputation. The spiritualistinterest gave it an immediate appeal, but it wasthe particular emotional climate in Australia thatmade Menin Gate a favourite with the public.

Nonetheless, Longstaff’s imagery was important tothe appeal of Menin Gate. Reproductions of it arestill popular, whereas the Dyson reproduction waslimited to one thousand copies and is now out ofprint. Dyson created specific characters ratherthan an anonymous mass of ghostly figures.Dyson’s figures are too clearly perceived to besuccessful as spirits: they are ghosts because thetext tells us so, but they could be taken for livingbeings. By contrast, Longstaff’s painting is like adream; his impressionistic soldiers hover in thecornfields like a mirage.

Menin Gate at midnight has undeniable power: it brings to life the many nameless heroes, themen on whom the ANZAC legend was based,and who exist as part of our national memory.It has understandably remained popular with alarge portion of the Australian public for overseventy years, and has become a national icon.

ANNE GRAY

Will LongstaffCarillon c. 1932oil on canvas 137 x 268.9 cmArchives New Zealand/ Te Whare TohuTuhituhinga O Aotearoa(AAAC/Q203)

ENDNOTES 1. “Menin Gate, Mr. Longstaff’s Inspiration”, Sydney Morning Herald,

11 June 1932.2. Paul Fussell, The Great War and Modern Memory, New York and

London, 1975, pp. 246–8.3. “Armies of the Dead and the Living: Coincidence in Two Scenes of

Uplifted Helmets – A Notable Memorial Painting and a Memory ofArmistice Day”, The Graphic, London, 23 December 1927.

4. Humphrey McQueen, The Black Swan of Trespass: The Emergence ofModernist Painting in Australia to 1944, Sydney, 1979, p. 98.

5. Ross McMullin, Will Dyson, Sydney, 1984, pp. 247–8.6. McQueen, The Black Swan, p. 98, estimates that more than one

million, of a total Australian population of six million, saw thepainting during its tour. However, exact figures are difficult toobtain. The Public Library, Museum and Art Gallery of Western

Australia recorded that the estimated total attendance during itsshowing in Perth from 3 to 30 July 1928 was 105,281. TheMelbourne Argus, 1 March 1929 noted that 50,000 people hadalready seen the work, which suggests that in total around100,000 saw the painting in Melbourne. It was also shown inAdelaide and Sydney and toured to country centres.

7. Sydney Morning Herald, 29 March, 9 May and 15 September 1928,and 4 October 1929. The present whereabouts of this work areunknown. Although some newspaper reports identify this work asbeing the same as The eternal march, another Longstaff paintingfrom the same period whose present whereabouts are alsounknown, the descriptions of these two works are quite different:ibid., 15 September and 3 November 1928.

8. The pupils of Buckingham College gave Drake’s drum to PrincessElizabeth and Prince Phillip on their wedding day.


Will Longstaff's Menin Gate at midnight (Ghosts of Menin Gate) (AWM ENCYCLOPEDIA JANUARY 2012) Will Longstaff's Menin Gate at midnight (Ghosts of Menin Gate), painted in 1927, is undoubtedly one of the best known paintings in the Australian War Memorial's art collection. In the years following the first world war, this painting's tribute to sacrifice, combined with its spiritualist overtones, struck exactly the right chord with many Australians who had lost family and friends in the war. The painting has been hung in the Memorial in a darkened room, under spotlights, in an environment that somewhat resembles a church, and that inspires a meditative and spiritual response.

Will Longstaff painted Menin Gate at midnight after he had attended the unveiling ceremony of the Menin Gate memorial at the entrance of the Belgian town of Ypres on 24 July 1927. This memorial was dedicated to the 350,000 men of the British and empire forces who had died in the battles around Ypres. Longstaff is reported to have been so profoundly moved by the ceremony that during a midnight walk along the Menin road he saw a vision of steel-helmeted spirits rising from the moonlit cornfields around him. It is said that, following his return to London, he painted the work in one session, while still under psychic influence. Another account suggests that Longstaff was influenced by Mrs Mary Horsburgh, who had worked in a British canteen during the war, and who told him when he met her during his evening walk that she could feel 'her dead boys' all around her.1

The scene is painted almost entirely in hues of blue, which helps to suggest a midnight scene. It is constructed on a simple, traditional, land-sky format: the pale memorial is placed boldly on the horizon, and before it marches a host of ghostly soldiers, portrayed by an impressionistic outline of bodies and helmets. In the immediate foreground, the cornfield is strewn with blood-red poppies. In the far distance, a small, silhouetted building with windows ablaze adds a dramatic contrast to the still monument of Menin Gate.

Longstaff used well-known motifs to trigger emotion. His scarlet poppies are flowers that could be found in the Flanders fields, but they also carry the traditional connotations of shed blood, and remembrance; they represent a floral blanket covering the bloodied bodies of unknown soldiers, and at the same time, like the paper poppies worn on Remembrance Day, they are a tribute from the living to the dead.2 The portrayal of the steel-helmeted soldiers rising from the cornfields extends the range of visual emblems used by Longstaff: the plentiful harvest, the harvest of men; the steel- helmeted crosses covering the graves of many soldiers; and, as well, the helmeted bayonets raised in cheer and victory.3 These symbols add resonance to the images, but they remain isolated references, and to some extent compete with each other. Some people may see and respond to one motif, others to another. This, in its way, contributes to the wide appeal of the painting: it is many things to many people.

One drawing in Will Longstaff's wartime sketch-book depicted a mutilated human leg lying in a poppy field; a poignant conjunction of a brutal fact of war with one of the delights of nature. In another sketch he drew French children placing flowers beside a helmeted cross, the grave of an unknown British soldier at Villers-Bretonneux. Such works suggest that Longstaff's interest in the juxtaposition of war dead with floral tributes long preceded Menin Gate.

In the 1920s, when Longstaff painted Menin Gate, spiritualism was in vogue, and many who wished to communicate with relatives and friends who had died in battle found consolation in its tenets. One of Longstaff's subsequent patrons, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, visited Australia in 1920 to promote the spiritualist message, and he received many letters of thanks from mothers who had lost their sons in the war and to whom he had given courage.4

Longstaff was by no means the first artist to portray spiritualist ideas. On ANZAC Day 1927, the Melbourne Herald published a cartoon by Will Dyson, A voice from ANZAC: 'Funny


thing, Bill - I keep thinking I hear men marching!', which depicted the spirits of two Australian soldiers seated on the shore at Gallipoli, a graphic visualization of survival after bodily death. This cartoon had a powerful emotional impact at the time and, as a result, the Herald printed a thousand reproductions which they presented to the Victorian branch of the Returned Sailors' and Soldiers' Imperial League of Australia (RSSILA) to distribute to its members.5 In 1929, Dyson produced another variation on this theme, Xmas memories, which portrayed a swagman and his dog accompanied by two ghostly diggers.

In February 1927, however, before either Dyson or Longstaff created their images of existence after death, Stanley Spencer caused a sensation in London with Resurrection, Cookham 1924-26. (He was also at this time working on Resurrection of soldiers, based on his experiences at the front.) Spencer's version of life after death shows newly resurrected villagers arising from their tombs in a Cookham churchyard. It differs from Longstaff's and Dyson's works in that the scene was intended as a metaphor, to suggest that paradise can be experienced on earth: it is an affirmation of the joys of life after the horrors of war. Nonetheless, Spencer's painting was a product of a period of intense interest in spiritualism, the same environment that fostered Longstaff's painting. As Longstaff lived and worked in Britain at this time, and maintained a studio in London, he may well have seen Spencer's painting and known of the acclaim it received.6

In 1930, Bohdan Nowak, a Polish engineer and architect, produced a series of twelve lithographs, Vox Mortuum (The voice of the dead). Vox Mortuum 4 (The unknown soldier) is particularly reminiscent of Menin Gate: it shows the ghostly figure of a soldier on a cross floating before an arc de triomphe, in front of which marches a host of soldiers on military parade. Longstaff was thus not alone in depicting this subject.7

Longstaff's painting was purchased by Lord Woolavington in 1928 for 2,000 guineas and was immediately presented to the Australian government.8 The price was considerable: Streeton's celebrated Golden Summer, Eaglemont of 1889 had been sold just four years earlier for half the price of the Longstaff painting9; and Stanley Spencer's Resurrection, Cookham was purchased by the British government for the national collection in 1927 for £1,000.

After Menin Gate was displayed in London, by royal command viewed by King George V and his family at Buckingham Palace, and shown in Manchester and Glasgow, it was sent to Australia. It was placed on display during 1928-29 in capital and regional cities around Australia, where it was seen by record crowds.10 One thousand reproductions of the painting were made in 1928 under Longstaff's direction, and signed by the artist. He retained two hundred of these to cover his costs and presented four hundred to the RSSILA for sale through the Australian War Memorial. He gave the remaining four hundred to the Earl Haig Fund, all to be sold at 10 guineas each. The four hundred allotted to Australia were sold by October 1929, at which time the Memorial produced a cheaper version which was distributed widely, door to door, through a marketing company. The salesmen were provided with a text learn by heart which reminded those who had friends and family that 'He is not missing. He is here'.11

Following the success of Menin Gate, Longstaff painted several other works on a similar theme. Immortal shrine (Eternal silence) [1928] depicts ghostly soldiers marching past the cenotaph in London on Remembrance Day 1928. This work was presented to the Memorial in 1943 by Mrs Trevor Hedberg and the Misses Winifred and Hope Kellow, daughters of the late Mr Charles Brown Kellow, who was a schoolboy contemporary of Longstaff's in Ballarat. Immortal shrine is closely based on a watercolour by Longstaff held in the Imperial War Museum that depicts the cenotaph on a rainy day: the bold structure of the cenotaph, the reflections in the street, and the glimmering lights are similar, but the watercolour is peopled by the silhouetted figures of ordinary men and women, rather than by ghostly soldiers, and in


Immortal shrine the cenotaph itself has a ghostly presence, gauntly white in front of the sombre blue-black buildings that dissolve into the horizon.

Another work on this theme, Ghosts of Vimy Ridge [ 1931 ], portrays the spirits of servicemen of the Canadian Corps. It clearly resembles Menin Gate in its composition: the memorial on Vimy Ridge stands dramatically on the summit beneath which the shimmering spirits of Canadian soldiers gather in the silvery moonlight. A fourth work, Carillon [1932], is said to show the ghosts of New Zealand soldiers on the beaches of Belgium listening to carillon bells in their own country. Ghosts of Vimy Ridge was presented to the Canadian government by John Dewer in 1931. Carillon was presented to the New Zealand government by Lord Wakefield in 1934-35.

Longstaff is also said to have painted two other works depicting phantom soldiers near the coast: The rearguard (The spirit of ANZAC) [1929], a ghostly array of soldiers lining up near the beach at Gallipoli in the bleak dawn, with departing transports and warships barely visible on the misty horizon12; and Drake's drum, reputedly painted in response to the evacuation of British troops from Dunkirk, and which is said to show the Sussex coast haunted by the spirits of servicemen rising to answer 'Drake's drum'.13

The fame accorded Menin Gate did not spread to Longstaff's other spiritualist works, partly because they were not publicly displayed. Ghosts of Vimy Ridge remained in seclusion for many years in a parliamentary committee room and was only recently placed on public display in the Canadian War Museum. Carillon, given to the National Gallery of New Zealand, was kept in storage for over thirty years until recently exhibited at the Queen Elizabeth II Army Memorial Museum at Waiouru.

For a variety of reasons, including political expediency, financial depression and a waning public interest in war, the Canadian government did not fund the display or restoration of its remarkable collection of war art, which had been assembled principally through the inspiration and sponsorship of the newspaper barons Lord Beaverbrook and Lord Rothermere.14 The New Zealand government demonstrated little interest in supporting war art during or after the war.

Even had the Canadian and New Zealand works been on display, they might not have evoked a strong public response. Menin Gate incorporates stronger composition and more powerful imagery than do Longstaff's later paintings. His evocative means of depicting the war dead gradually became little more than a formula.

The particular recognition and remembrance of Australian war dead and the service of Australian soldiers that fostered the creation of the Australian War Memorial meant that Menin Gate was available for viewing. Moreover, the ANZAC tradition, the belief that the first world war was a watershed in Australian history, the baptism of a nation and the creation of a national hero, and that those who died on foreign soil did so to create a greater Australia, gave this painting an added, almost religious, significance. Within this context, the painting's dramatic display at the Memorial and the publicity it received during its Australian tour, as well as the wide distribution of colour reproductions in aid of charitable causes, contributed to its reputation. The spiritualist interest gave these works an immediate appeal, but it was the particular emotional climate in Australia that made Menin Gate a favourite with the public.

The appeal of Dyson's A voice From ANZAC and Xmas memories was much more short-lived than that of Menin Gate. Further reproductions of Menin Gate were produced once the initial one thousand were sold, and have continued to be demanded up to this day; the Dyson reproduction was limited to one thousand copies. Dyson's work has a period flavour: he created specific characters rather than an anonymous mass of ghostly figures. Dyson's figures


are too clearly perceived to be successful as spirits: they are ghosts because the text tells us so, but they could be taken for living beings. By contrast, Longstaff's painting is like a dream; the impressionistic shadows of soldiers that hover in the cornfields are like a mirage. Because the figures are not clearly delineated, because it appears that they may be a quirk of perception, they really seem ghostly.

Menin Gate at midnight has undeniable power: it brings to life the many nameless heroes, the men on whom the ANZAC legend was based, and who exist as part of our national memory. It has understandably remained popular with a large portion of the Australian public for sixty years, and has become a national icon.

ANNE GRAY Senior curator of art

Endnotes

1. 'Menin Gate, Mr. Longstaff's Inspiration', Sydney Morning Herald, 11 June 1932. 2. Paul Fussell, The Great War and Modern Memory, New York and London, 1975, pp. 246-8. 3. 'Armies of the dead and the living: Coincidence in Two Scenes of Uplifted Helmets -A

Notable Memorial Painting and a Memory of Armistice Day', The Graphic, London, 23 December 1927.

4. Humphrey McQueen, The Black Swan of Trespass: The Emergence of Modernist Painting in Australia to 1944, Sydney, 1979, p. 98.

5. Ross McMullin, Will Dyson, Sydney, 1984, pp. 247-8. 6. 6. Maurice Collis, Stanley Spencer, London, 1962; Richard Carline, Stanley Spencer at War,

London, 1978; Richard Carline, Stanley Spencer RA, London, 1980. 7. D. J. R. Bruckner et al., Art against war, New York, 1984. 8. This was the first of two Longstaff paintings so given by Lord Woolavington; the second,

Australian artillery in action at Péronne, was accepted by the Memorial in 1932. 9. R. H. Croll (ed.), Smike to Bulldog: Letters from Sir Arthur Streeton to Tom Roberts,

Sydney, 1946, pp.115-16. 10. McQueen, The Black Swan, p. 98, estimates that more than one million people, of a

total Australian population of six million, saw the painting on its tour. However, exact figures are difficult to obtain. The Public Library, Museum and Art Gallery of Western Australia recorded in its annual report for the year ended June 1929 that the estimated total attendance during its showing in Perth from 3 to 30 July 1928 was 105,281. The Melbourne Argus, 1 March 1929, in an advertisement for its display at the Town Hall (14 February to 9 March 1929) noted that 50,000 people had already seen the work, which suggests that in total around 100,000 saw the painting in Melbourne. It was also shown in Adelaide and Sydney and toured to country centres.

11. Registry file 895/1/65, AWM. These reproductions are inscribed 'Published by the artist' and 'Original presented to the Commonwealth of Australia by Lord Woolavington'.

12. Sydney Morning Herald, 29 March, 9 May and 15 September 1928, and 4 October 1929. The present whereabouts of this work are unknown. Although some newspaper reports identify this work as being the same as The eternal march, another Longstaff painting from the same period whose present whereabouts are also unknown, the descriptions of these two works are quite different: ibid., 15 September and 3 November 1928.

13. Drake's drum was presented by the pupils of Buckingham College to Princess Elizabeth and Prince Phillip on their wedding day.

14. Maria Tippett, Art at the Service of War: Canada. Art and the Great War, Toronto, 1984.

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