September Morn 1918

Clifford Kennedy Berryman made this pen and ink drawing, September Morn, in 1918. I can see him there with his pen, figuring things out, one mark at a time, cross-hatching to give shape to the soldier’s weary form. I wonder what Berryman was thinking, hunched over his drawing board? How could he capture the futility and exhaustion of war in a single image? The soldier trudges through water, weighed down by his gear and dashed hopes, Berlin a distant dream on the horizon. That word 'Somme' scrawled across the water – it feels like a heavy step, each letter a marker of loss. There’s a real sense of weight to those lines, a kind of dragging, desperate energy that reminds me of Otto Dix’s war etchings. It’s like they’re both trying to make sense of something senseless, using the physicality of their mediums to bear witness. The cross hatching creates depth, a sense of grit and grime. Artists are always in dialogue with each other, across time, borrowing, responding, and pushing back. Painting, drawing – it's all about this embodied conversation, a way of feeling and thinking through the world.