War and Pieces (of art)

One of the first articles I read about the Battle of Cassino discussed the complete destruction of the historic hilltop abbey of Monte Cassino, founded in AD 524 by Benedict of Nursia.

On 15 February 1944, the monastery, high on a peak overlooking the town of Cassino, was destroyed by 1,400 tons of bombs dropped by American bombers. The bombing was based on the fear that the abbey was being used as a lookout post for the German defenders. This position evolved over time to an admission that German soldiers were not garrisoned there but that the risk of the monastery becoming occupied justified the action.

As an artist I read this with horror. What frescoes, sculpture, paintings must have been destroyed?

Actually not as much as I imagined. Attached to this story of enormous carnage I found another of an unexpected nature.

In the Italian Autumn of 1943, two German officers, Captain Maximilian Becker, a surgeon in the Hermann Göring Panzer Division and Lieutenant Colonel Julius Schlegel of the same unit, with singular prescience proposed the removal of Monte Cassino’s treasures to the Vatican and Vatican-owned Castel Sant'Angelo before the war would come closer.



Image: German soldiers rescuing artworks from Monte Cassino

Both officers convinced church authorities and their own senior commanders to use the division’s trucks and fuel for the undertaking. They had to find the materials necessary for crates and boxes, identify skilled carpenters among their troops, recruit local laborers (to be paid with rations of food plus twenty cigarettes per day), and then manage the massive job of evacuation centered on the library and archive, a treasure literally without price. The Abbey’s archives, library and gallery included 800 papal documents, 20,500 volumes in the Old Library, 60,000 in the New Library, 500 incunabula, 200 manuscripts on parchment, 100,000 prints and separate collections.

The first trucks, carrying paintings by Italian old masters, were ready to go less than a week from the day Dr. Becker and Schlegel first arrived in Monte Cassino. Each vehicle carried monks to Rome as escorts; in over one hundred truckloads the convoys nearly depopulated the Abbey’s monastic community.

The task was completed in the first days of November 1943. In three weeks, in the middle of a losing war, in another country, it was quite an achievement.

Monte Cassino and Cassino have different meaning for the various participant nations of the battles. For the western Allies, monuments and inscriptions invoke God and country and sacrifice and freedom; for the Poles it stood as a "symbol of hope for their country." For the Germans and their veterans it was altogether different. Monte Cassino "represented the courage ... of their soldiers defending against Allied matériel strength," superior numbers and overwhelming firepower, a precursor of events to come. They "fought with ... great skill ... No crimes stain the German record here, nor were there any self-inflicted horrors like Stalingrad," and — that they were able to "save the treasures of Monte Cassino and the museum and gallery of Naples [endures as] a point of particular pride."**

** Ref. Wikipedia

Letters to Cassino | Initial Concept

Introduction

In the previous post I talked about how we find identity in landscape - particular places we hold to be of significance.

Nowhere provides a better example of this for New Zealanders than Gallipoli. Over recent decades increasing numbers of Kiwi’s (and I use that label deliberately) have been flocking to this barren and rocky promontory for intangible, spiritual reasons. A pilgrimage to Gallipoli has become a kind of Kiwi Hajj; an important element of the great “overseas experience”, often undertaken as part of the journey home. ANZAC Cove is regularly described as the crucible in which our national identity was forged.

There are strong connections between places of conflict and our national identity. I am keen to explore this.

Mac & Monte Cassino



Gallipoli, Paeschendale, El Alamein, Monte Cassino. These are places with resonance for New Zealanders whether or not we fully understand what occurred, why or even which conflict.

Having a new child tends to kindle an interest in your lineage and heritage. This has certainly been true for my wife who still has a grandmother alive. While exploring family connections and looking through old photos one turned up of her late grandfather, Mac, amongst the rubble of Monte Cassino.

Mac’s service at Cassino was well known. Indeed it is mentioned frequently by his widow, children and grandchildren. That Mac was a Cassino veteran is a strong theme in the family’s identity. It causes my wife to get up at 5.30am every April 25th to stand in the rain and cold at a dawn service, wherever she happens to be, even though family knowledge of the campaign and what part Mac played is sketchy at best.

I want to find out more about the man and the place. What happened at Monte Cassino and why. What role did Mac play, what would he have witnessed, and possibly felt about it? I want to find all this out, for my wife and for my daughter. There is also a second element, gathering the shared stories about Mac and Monte Cassino and explore how they are important in helping to bind the family and if and how they diverge from fact. And does that matter?

If I was a writer I’d write about it. If I was a film-maker, I’d make a documentary. But I’m a painter, so I’ll try to use my skills and experience to create a body of artwork that tells the story as best I can.

The plan

The working concept is Letters to Cassino – an imagined correspondence over 65 years between Mac and a Cassino citizen.

The project will have several phases, although not necessarily sequential:
• Gathering the family’s artefacts – shared stories, photos, letters etc
• Researching official records
• Internet and library research
• Onsite research – a visit to Cassino
• The development of a body of artwork
• Exhibition of artworks