that my child may have peace

'If there must be trouble let it be in my day, that my child may have peace.'

'It is not only the living who are killed in war.'

These two quotes; the first is Thomas Paine, the second Isaac Asimov, together are the inspiration for the painting in progress.

It's hard to make it out at this early stage, but it is two images. The top part of the painting is Whangamata January 2010 with his granddaughter and great granddaughter.

The lower image is based on the photo of Mac and his tank crew taken in 1944 while they rested after 3 days trapped inside their tank during a German bombardment.


I'm almost certain that when Mac and other young men set off to the war they did not have Tom Paine's words motivating their actions. But I'm pretty sure that ten or twenty years later they would not have wanted their children and grandchildren to experience anything like what they did at Cassino.

The painting will measure roughly 120cm square. For the first time I am using unstretched canvas. It's a heavy Indian cotton, quadruple primed; three white, the last black.

I've been using a black primer for awhile now. It presents a challenge when it comes to marking out the composition, but I prefer the luminosity it gives to colour - or possibly that is just in my imagination. The challenge ahead is going to be not getting too detailed and maintaining a sense of energy.

Twist of fate | Cassino Exhibition May 2010

A rare opportunity
A rare opportunity has come my way. An invitation to take part in an exhibition of New Zealand artists in Cassino from 15 to 29 May 2010.

The theme is Peace and Remembrance.


What this means for me
The pressure is now on for me to come up with my first painting in this body of artwork.

If am unable to raise the money to attend the exhibition, and therefore freight the painting/s my guess is that I’ll need to have them completed mid-April.

There is nothing like a deadline to inspire action.

What I plan to do
There is no value in doing the artistic equivalent of sending ‘coals to Newcastle’. Italians will not go to an exhibition of New Zealand artists to see paintings of war graves and fallen buildings, surely? I want to send them something they may not have seen; New Zealand. But it needs to link to the purpose of the show.

Twist of fate, an unpredicted or random occurrence with far-reaching consequences

At this early juncture one idea is taking shape; two photographs, one sitting on top of the other. One is a creased and faded black and white photo of Mac and comrades resting amongst the rubble of Cassino in 1944. The other is a vivid colour photo of a family group on the beach at Whangamata taken January 2010. It’s a photo I took and it includes Mac’s widow, his daughter, two granddaughters and two great granddaughters.

The Battle of Cassino may not have been an unpredicted or a random occurrence, but on the ground, whether or not one person survived could come down to a twist of fate.

I cannot know what Mac experienced in Cassino in 1943/44. But I do know many people are grateful that he survived. If he hadn’t, that second photo and five of the people in it would not exist. One is my wife, another is my daughter. The same story will be true for incalculable numbers of people across the globe; it’s a universal story, 65 years passed and three new generations born.

Equally it’s important to consider the lives fate did not spare. War doesn’t just kill the people there and then, it destroys unnumbered futures. The consequences are far-reaching indeed.

The Battle of Cassino

The battle of Monte Cassino was one of the bloodiest engagements of World War II and it remains one of the most controversial.



An ancient Benedictine monastery overlooking the battleground was destroyed by bombers in February 1944.
But bad allied co-ordination before and after the attack allowed German forces to occupy the ruins.

In the photo above , New Zealand Troops fight hand-to-hand through the streets of the town.

The New York Times said the onslaught from bombers and artillery on 15 February 1944 was the worst ever directed at a single building.
But parts still remained standing.
The battle at Monte Cassino had begun a month earlier, as allied forces fought up through Italy.
It ended in May, with up to a quarter of a million dead or wounded.

The advance into Cassino was preceded by a massive aerial bombardment.
Hundreds of bombers dropped nearly 1,000 tons of high explosive - about five tons for every German soldier in the town.
But the resulting craters and piles of rubble hindered infantry movements, and blocked the path of allied tanks.

The monastery - what was left of it - was finally taken by Polish forces on 18 May.
A handful of wounded German soldiers were found sheltering in the crypt containing St Benedict's tomb.



Fragments of ancient frescoes and broken sculptures lay among unexploded shells and the bodies of dead soldiers.

The appalling conditions at Monte Cassino came as a shock even to hardened German troops transferred from the Eastern front.
Some German soldiers were poorly equipped and froze to death for lack of proper clothing.

The allied victory was achieved as much as anything by sheer weight of men and military hardware.

Today the monastery has been re-built.

It looks down over the new town of Cassino, the main road from Naples to Rome, and thousands of war graves.



In this cemetery lie Britons, New Zealanders, Canadians, Indians and Gurkhas.

Polish and German cemeteries lie not far away.







Acknowledgements to the bbc.co.uk for the information and photos used in this post