The Price of Freedom
“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.” - Thomas Jefferson.
Vigilance is “watchfulness
in respect to danger.” But what does that really mean? What does it look like?
In times of war when the reality of freedom is on the line, what does vigilance
do? Can you capture vigilance on paper with words or on canvas with paint?
During World War
II, hundreds of artists risked their very lives to be on the front lines of
battle, putting down on canvas the images of war – the price of freedom. These
combat artists worked for various branches of the military as well as for
national news magazines. All together they produced more than 12,000 pieces of
art.
The record of these
men is a fascinating story. You can watch a PBS documentary about them called They Drew Fire, or you can go online to www.pbs.org/theydrewfire. At this website you will find
dozens of paintings from these artists along with good narrative describing the
combat artist program.
What you will discover
is that the art was often produced under the extreme conditions of battle.
The documentary says, “In a Marine landing, the artist was expected 
to
fight like any other Marine until the beach was secured. He would take cover
and make sketches during the heat of the battle, but he would usually complete
his work in the rear echelons, after the fighting stopped. Always the artist
tried to communicate the truth of his experience. Donald Dickson, one of the
best known Marine artists, said, ‘I’m not interested in drawing Marines who
are spick and span and smartly dressed. I don’t want to gloss over life out
here. It’s dirty and hot and rugged and that’s the way I want to draw it.’”
It is worth a moment
to consider that even in an age of quality photography, there was still a
longing to capture images through the brush stroke of an artist in addition
to the lens of a camera. I am not arguing
for the exclusivity of one over the other. Certainly there are piles and piles
of unforgettable World War II photographs etched into our cultural memory.
However, a painting expresses something a photograph cannot.
Gibney
said this about the painting and his own day of departure: “The Day of leaving home- that’s kind of a
traumatic thing for a young fella that hadn’t been
that far away from home before. I know the day that I had to leave I was quite
fearful. I’d heard stories about the Marine Corps that’d curl your hair. I was
afraid of it. And yet I knew that was the place where perhaps I could do my
best art.”
Vigilance is expressed in a determination to
fulfill duty, even at the cost of leaving family behind. As Robert E. Lee said
to his own son, “Duty is the sublimest word in the
language. You can never do more than your duty. You should never wish to do
less.”
The family and the son know there is an
enemy to be fought, a freedom to be preserved. They are alert to the danger in
the world, and it is their vigilance which prompts the sacrifice. Now, the
danger will come close to home. The peril of the hour has beckoned a sacrifice
that greets them at their own doorstep.
The second painting by Gibney
is called The Last Full Measure.
It depicts a solitary GI, face down in water stained red with his own
blood. In full-color, the painting is
almost strange. The blue of the water and the red-tint of the blood, combined
with the lighting, give the painting a quality of ‘prettiness’ that stands in
stark contrast to the reality of the dark green and black corpse in the center.
I think the contrast is intentional, showing the intrusion of the ugliness of
war onto the serene beauty of the beachhead. Or perhaps it is a way of showing
the beauty of personal sacrifice, albeit through a bloody death, in that the
nameless soldier gave his life in defense of his country.
About this painting, Gibney said, “If I thought
I saw chaos before, this was even worse. I can’t tell you the number of bodies
of American Marines that were lying face down in the water. I have one painting
of that. I thought long and hard about it when I made the painting, should
I show how many there were? Well, no, I’d need a big canvas for that. So I
did one body, and I called it The Last Full Measure.”
The title of the work comes from the
Gettysburg Address of Abraham Lincoln. In speaking of the fallen soldiers, Lincoln
said: “It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining
before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that
cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion.”
Perhaps we should connect this piece with
the previous one, imagining that this fallen soldier is the same one we
witnessed leaving home and family. The enemy’s bullet affected not only the
soldier, but the ones who will mourn his loss for the remainder of their lives.
So, can “vigilance” be captured on canvas? I
think that it can and it should. Keeping an ever-watchful eye on the enemies of
freedom, we must always remember that defense of freedom often leads us down a
path of personal sacrifice. Such action should not be sentimentalized. The
sacrifice is necessary and noble, but not pretty. Nor should we think that the
enemy of freedom is always a foreign army. Liberty can also be imprisoned by
American judicial robes, political backroom dealings, or by lawlessness which
makes a person afraid to walk the street at night.
As we celebrate the 4th of July this year,
let us remember the sacrifice others have made for our freedom, and commit
ourselves to renewed vigilance in the preservation of those freedoms.
W. Scott
Lamb is a pastor with Providence Baptist Church in South St. Louis County,
MO. He and his wife Pearl enjoy the challenges and pleasures of raising their
four sons. Feel free to contact Scott at www.truthinartblog.com.
