It was a hundred years ago this summer, the 28 June to be exact that the Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo. It was only just over a month later that Britain sustained her first casualties when a cruiser was sunk at sea and the British Expeditionary Force landed in France.
The war which was to take the lives of so many young men as well as the old, the young and the desperate from all over Europe, had begun.
And so I offer this piece as my painting this month. It's a watercolour, framed and is about 16" x 20".
We are all aware of the significance of the poppy I'm sure and I like to think that the tangle of leaves and stems echoes the barbed wire of 'No Man's Land' with the beauty of the bright poppies emerging from the ghastliness.
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In Flanders Fields: John McCrae
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
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I have omitted the final verse - it's reconciliation not further bloodshed that should concern us now.....
