In Pat Barker’s latest novel she returns to the horror of WWI, the setting of her highly acclaimed Regeneration trilogy. The title could refer to the lessons of life, but the opening scene takes us to a life class at the Slade School of Art in 1914, where, we’re told, “the atmosphere was not unlike a men’s club.” But this is not because there are no women at all at the Slade: in fact the majority of the students were female. “Even the Slade, scandalousy modern in most respects, segregated the sexes when the naked human body was on display.”
The novel follows a trio of art students and their preoccupations with love and lust, which pale to insignificance as the momentum of war gathers pace. Paul and Kit both volunteer for Red Cross duty at the front, and process their experiences into their painting, whereas in contrast, Elinor joins the circle around Lady Ottoline Morrell, society hostess to pacifists, conscientious objectors and the Bloomsbury Group, and refuses to allow war any place in artistic endeavour. There are further real-life characters: Augustus John for example, or Professor Henry Tonks, notorious for his abruptness and sarcasm. Tonks is symbolic of the main interest of this fascinating novel: the question of the relationship between art and life, as he himself straddled the worlds of art and medicine. He trained as a surgeon, mainly to please his parents, then followed his own ambition by becoming an artist. From 1916 to 1918 he worked for Sir Harold Gillies, the man generally considered to be the father of plastic surgery. Gillies insisted on the need for a facial injury ward at the Royal Military Hospital: the trenches of WWI may have protected soldiers’ bodies to some extent but left their heads exposed to sniper fire. While I was surfing the net for information about the figures portrayed, I found the website of an Australian sculptor that gives an intriguing insight into the interface between art and plastic surgery. And the question of aesthetics is raised amongst the fictional artists: How much horror can or should be shown? Is horrific injury, gangrene, pain and suffering a suitable subject for art? Does that turn into propaganda?
Christopher Nevinson:Machine Gun (1915)
When asked what she would paint if her brother were killed, Elinor maintains that she wouldn’t paint the monster that killed him, but the things he loved, the countryside, home, the memories of his life, not the agent of his death. But isn’t that just looking on art as decoration? Pat Barker says in an interview that her fictional characters are entirely her own creation, but naturally there are real-life models: Christopher Nevinson or perhaps Dora Carrington.
Dora Carrington: Farm at Watendlath
All in all, this was an immensely satisfying piece of writing, which combines learning with the pleasures of a good read.
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