Customer Reviews

They Drew Fire

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This book is meant to accompany a documentary, and when I saw the director and two of the combat artists on Charlie Rose (5/19/00?), they showed several of the drawings from the book, and they were pretty amazing.

I think it's true that we think of WWII as primarily a photographer's war, but some of these paintings give a new feeling (one driven by an artist's emotion) to the war that isn't quite the same as through photography.

Even though I only saw a few of the paintings on the interview, it was enough for me to plan to buy the book.

This collection fills a small void in WWII history. To this point we could read stories, hear stories, read books on campaigns,look at photographs and film, and even watch full color film of battles (see WWII in Color DVD, Lost Color Archives DVD, Mein Krieg DVD), but none of these mediums can convey the things that painting can. Paintings speak to us without words. They need no translation. This is the soul of WWII and should be part of anyone's collection.

I thought this was a great book. It is an amazing story of the artists who, in many cases, braved the battlefields of World War 2 and endured many dangers and privations to record first-hand images of life on the front lines. Despite these conditions they managed to produce some amazing drawings and paintings, many of which are reproduced for the enjoyment of the reader. This book provides, not only the story of how this program of battlefield artists came to be, but also biographical information on many of the individual artists themselves. I read it cover to cover with much enthusiasm, and would recommend it to anyone interested in artists and their art, as well as students of World War 2.