The Artist and the Warrior: An Interview with Theodore K. Rabb

In the artist and the warrior: Military history through the Eyes of the Masters (Yale University Press, 2011), eminent Princeton University historian Theodore Rabb traces how artists have perceived warfare over the centuries. In this lavishly illustrated volume of multidisciplinary interest, Rabb's formidable grasp of the history of art enhances our understanding of the history of war. Senior editor Donald Yerxa interviewed Rabb in September 2012.

Donald A. Yerxa:

For the benefit of our readers, would you briefly describe what you are doing in this book?

Theodore K. Rabb:

The making of art and the waging of war are among mankind's oldest activities, but one does not often think of them as connected. At first glance, they seem almost polar opposites. Yet artists have regularly taken warfare as a subject, and specific moments when this happens—such as during the Renaissance—have been studied by historians. Rather than look at only one era, I have tried to tell the basic story from beginning to end—what we can learn from the relationship as it has unfolded over nearly 3,000 years, from Assyria to Guernica.

Yerxa:

What prompted you to write it?

Rabb:

It is a topic I have dabbled in from time to time, partly in response to commissions from Military History Quarterly. But I thought it was time to try to give an overview of the entire subject, rather than continue to look at specific examples from different periods. Once you take the larger view, moreover, some themes begin to appear that put individual works into a much broader context.

Yerxa:

You mention that over the centuries there have been three basic categories that describe the relationship between the artist and the warrior. What are they?

Rabb:

What became noticeable, as the full sweep of the subject began to take shape, was that artists had adopted one of three positions when they decided to depict military conflict. First was the glorification of war. This was what the political elite, which did most of the commissioning, wanted to show, and it was a natural theme for the patriotically inclined. Second was the opposite, the presentation of warfare as devastating and brutal. This has become a significant approach during the past 500 years, as artists have asserted their independence from patrons and displayed a growing social conscience. Third was the documentary recording of battle and the life of the soldier. This has been an interest in all periods, and has reflected an enduring concern to capture the details of every kind of human activity. It even led, as I suggest in one chapter, to a fascination with the color and patterns of military life—to such a degree that warfare became, for some artists, an opportunity to create (for want of a better term) decorative scenes.

A detail of Paolo Uccello's Battle of San Romano (1438-1440). From the BBC series The Private Life of a Masterpiece (2005).

Yerxa:

What have been the major turning points in the relationship between the artist and the warrior?

Rabb:

The major turning points, which it was a purpose of the book to uncover, look fairly clear-cut. From the earliest days of the representation of warfare, and for more than two millennia thereafter, the basic assumption was that war was a noble enterprise: an opportunity for heroism. There were occasional evocations of the pathos of death and loss, but basically these were centuries that regarded the subject as a means to celebrate valor and victory. That began to change in Western art in the 16th and 17th centuries, when a few leading figures began to focus on what Peter Paul Rubens referred to as the "plunder, outrage, and misery, which are so injurious to everyone that it is unnecessary to go into detail." By the 19th century, these critics of warfare had come to dominate the arts, and during the last 200 years their views have been as prevalent as once they were rare. Laying out that progression gave the book its basic structure.

Yerxa:

What role did developments...