Historical landmarks/chronological landmarks
On July 10th, 1917, the third Battle of Ypres had not yet started but both sides were preparing for it.
In fact the Ypres Salient was at the heart of one of the bloodiest sectors of the western front during the First World War. It is estimated that 500,000 soldiers died here between October 1914 and October 1918.
During the first Battle of Ypres (17 October-22 November 1914) the French and the British were struggling to prevent the Germans from breaking through the Allied lines and reaching the North Sea ports. The Germans launched the first ever gas attack in history during the second Battle of Ypres (22 April-24 May 1915). In French, mustard gas is called “ypérite”, referring to this horrific event. But the English term for it was coined due to its yellow colour.
The third Battle of Ypres (21 July-10 November 1917) started with a major British attack. During this event, which is also known as the Battle of Passchendaele, the biggest losses occurred.
The artist
Jean-Louis Lefort, a former Fine Arts’ student from Bordeaux, had been drafted as a soldier during the Great War. He is one of the few artists to have left such a complete testimonial of daily life on the frontline (600 to 700 watercolours). He painted his first watercolour in Artois, where he was stationed in December 1914. He spent the summer of 1917 in Belgian Flanders where he painted the watercolour of July 10th, 1917.
Jean Lefort merely recorded "what he saw, as he saw it, in the places where he saw it, from day to day. This wartime work’s significance is the outcome of Lefort’s absolute sincerity." Source: according to an article by Jean RENÉ, the Curator of the War Museum , published in Revue d’histoire de la guerre mondiale - Société de l’histoire de la guerre – 1924
Art during the Great War
In 1914 artists were also drafted and confronted with the horrors of life on the frontline. During their mobilization many of these artists continued to draw resulting in a significant artistic output. These wartime works are mainly drawings, sketches and watercolours. Few of them reflect the true destructive force of the new weapons, the ferocity of the confrontations... Instead they focus on the daily lives of the soldiers.
How can we explain this? Soldiers on the frontline mainly considered drawings as a way of escaping from a sordid reality. The painters that were officially appointed by the army tended to focus on a more traditional view of the army. And like all the other soldiers, these painter-soldiers were censored. The exhibitions of Vuillard (1868-1940) or Steinlein (1859-1923) for example were supervised by the military authorities. Photography became more dominant showcasing the consequences of the violence in illustrated magazines.
Large formats were only created much later. Otto Dix created his War triptych in 1929-32.