SOLDIER
Sir Sydney Nolan 1917-1992
Australian War Memorial, Canberra
COMMENT by De Mer
This Australian painting was painted in the period 1955-56 when Nolan visited Gallipoli and Crete. The work was a purposeful attempt by the artist to iconalise the British/Anzac debacle of the Dardenelles in 1915. Though very simple in composition, colour and brushwork, the posture of the subject and gorish red colour, leaves a powerful effect on the viewer. It depicts the ANZAC legend of Gallipoli which was Australia's baptism of fire on the world stage of warfare. As horrible and tragic as Gallipoli was, its hills covered in blood of men thousands of miles away from their homeland and then the ANZAC's ultimate defeat and retreat from Turkey. From out of all this red and black, is the white "plume of victory".... strengthening and maturing Australia as a nation. Gallipoli had made us aware of our courage and our ingenuity, our uniqueness. I say as a nation, but microcosmically it also represents all human beings, that ultimately in our greatest defeats and errors lies the victory of development and growth, a rebirth. In every negative lies the light of something positive.
