Military Review English Edition May-June 2016 | Page 19

UNCONVENTIONAL ART

(Reprinted with permission from James Dietz, American Art & Antiques, www.jamesdietz.com)

Print of the 75th Ranger Regiment making a parachute assault 20 December 1989 on Rio Hato Drop Zone, Panama, during Operation Just
Cause. The print, by noted combat artist James Dietz, is titled Energetically, Will I Meet the Enemies of My Country.

Unconventional Art
and Modern War
Maj. Randall A. Linnemann, U.S. Army

M

uch visual art is produced about and because
of war. But, when an artist paints a war
scene, does he or she paint just the warriors
and their weapons? Far from it. Artists strive for visual
effects that capture the ambiance and the meanings of
their subjects, regardless of their style of painting.
So, how might an artist capture the energy,
friction, and chaos of war? Would Clausewitzian
friction in a painting look like James Dietz’s
MILITARY REVIEW  May-June 2016

Energetically, Will I Meet The Enemies of My Country,
a classical composition that shows a scene of war in
a realistic style?
Would Clausewitzian friction in a painting look like
a frenetic explosion of energy and color? Or, might it be
more akin to Umberto Boccioni’s Dynamism of a Soccer
Player (see page 18), an abstract, symbolic composition
that shows objects in contact creating friction as potential energy becomes kinetic energy?
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