Our troops charge forward into Bernafay Wood and clear the Bosche out of their entranchments after 1914

Curator: It feels desolate. A grey climb into more grey. The mood is heavy with…determination, maybe? And a distinct lack of trees, considering they are going into a wood. Editor: Here we have a gelatin silver print created sometime after 1914, bearing the title “Our troops charge forward into Bernafay Wood and clear the Bosche out of their entrenchments.” The stereoscopic presentation offers an immediate illusion of depth, enhancing the sense of entering the scene. Curator: Stereoscopic...like those old View-Masters? Adds a dimension of realness, doesn’t it? It's hard to forget these were real blokes, crawling through actual mud and…whatever “Bosche” were. It punches the propaganda, somewhat? It tries, anyway. Editor: Indeed. The composition uses a strong diagonal, emphasizing the uphill struggle. And the grayscale tonality underscores the grimness and uniformity, perhaps suggesting the industrial scale of war. There’s a clear foreground, middle ground, and background, contributing to a believable, albeit manipulated, spatial representation. Curator: Manipulated…yeah. It's not *not* trying to pump up the home crowd. All very noble and right, no screams or bowels… heroic hill-climbing instead. Is Bernafay Wood just out of frame then? That bleached sky does zero favors in obscuring the heavy hand. Editor: Precisely, the high contrast combined with that stark white sky seems calculated. It evokes a certain purity, almost a moral clarity, despite depicting a scene of conflict. And, in purely formal terms, the figures in the lower left ground the composition, their posture mirroring that of the tree limbs behind them. A subtle, structuring echo. Curator: Ha. An echo alright. They are almost shadows to that skinny tree's light… the whole set up almost cancels itself out…heroic figures? or doomed fodder. All lost amongst art's structuralist what-nots! Well, give me art over war any day…or is that just what they want me to think… Editor: An evocative reading indeed, one I believe is supported by its formal qualities. These constructed images ask as many questions as they answer. A worthwhile endeavor.