War artists - Written in the landscape

The war at high altitude required considerable logistical and material effort for the care of the wounded and sick. In the high mountains there were only first aid structures, while intermediate structures, more spacious and organized, were located in the valley floor. For the most serious cases, transfer to military hospitals in territories even farther away from the front was organized. In addition to historical photographs, there remain recollections of the health infrastructure and biographies of doctors who worked at the front or who visited it.
For many, religiosity played an important role in making the harshness of war bearable. The private one, of the individual soldiers, can be reconstructed with extreme difficulty through some objects or personal diaries. The rites of official religiosity, on the other hand, are well documented by photographs, drawings and written sources. These sources show that religiosity itself was often exploited for propaganda purposes and to support the war effort. Parish priests and chaplains, such as Feldkurat Josef Hosp on the Austrian side and Don Pietro Zangrando on the Italian side, supported with conviction the causes of their respective staffs, to the extent that they intervened at times: on the front, faith and patriotism were closely intertwined.
The general staff prepared numerous cemeteries for the fallen. At high altitude, there were emergency cemeteries, in some cases located near the front lines. Time has left barely visible traces of these places. On the Austro-Hungarian front, the cemetery of Toblingerdörfl and that of Zirbenboden are known, both well documented by photographs of the time. Between the two wars, the remains of the soldiers were exhumed and moved to the large cemeteries dedicated to the fallen, in ossuaries or in village tombs, partly for ideological and political reasons. (GF, SK)

The landscape that characterizes the area on which the research of the Written on the Landscape project focused is the Dolomite medium and high mountains, upon which military structures and infrastructures were grafted. From a naturalistic point of view, a monographic report of the Italian I Army Corps of 1917 proves to be particularly revealing, in which we read: “The region in question is part of the Dolomite Alps, of which it forms the extreme eastern edge, and, in this region, the characters of the Triassic formation are very marked, with local tectonic disturbances […]. The phenomena of erosion have acted intensely on dolomite, a constituent element of these rocks, so as to form irregular and steep slopes, furrowed by deep gullies. The typical example of the intensity of this erosion is given by the Tre Cime di Lavaredo; and where erosion has manifested itself most, shales and sandstones have been laid bare.”
The report is very detailed and also focuses on the intricate situation of water: “From the orographic complexity of the region results, by natural consequence, a corresponding hydrographic complexity, and it is noteworthy that in a relatively small area there are watercourses unfolding in different and opposite directions. Thus, while the Rio Marzon, the Rio Cengia and the Rio Giralba all have the general north-south direction, the Bacher Bach goes from south to north; and while the Boden Bach runs from west to east, the Schwarze Rienz [Rienza Nera] descends from east to west.” This is followed by climatic considerations, in which the minimum winter temperatures that have been recorded can drop to -30° C, and insights on the vegetation, ranging from coniferous forest, to mountain forest, to rhododendron.1Archivio dell’Ufficio storico dello Stato Maggiore dell’Esercito, Roma, Monografie del I Corpo d’Armata – Genio – Sistemazione difensiva, AUSSME_B1_110D_23A.
A complex natural landscape, therefore, that did not make life at high altitude easy for the hundreds of men who faced each other for twenty-nine months, summer and winter, in the Dolomites. (GF)

For the soldiers who found themselves fighting on the Three Peaks Plateau, winters were long and snowy. The snow fell from October to April and could last until late June in the shaded areas of the highest peaks. The minimum temperature often dropped to -30°C at night, hovering around 0°C during the day.
Frostbite and avalanches soon became familiar dangers. To help the soldiers survive in such conditions, both staffs provided detailed equipment and instructions. Each Italian soldier, for example, received two sets of woolen garments and three heavy blankets. The troops in the trenches also received coats and shoes lined with fur, clogs, balaclavas, leg wraps, socks, waterproof clothing and sleeping bags. To avoid frostbite, antioxidant fat was distributed to spread on the feet. To limit the damage caused by avalanches, officers from both armies had maps at their disposal showing the points most likely to cause snow loss. Despite this, the winter at high altitude resulted in hundreds of victims.
As time went on, the general staffs began to take advantage of winter conditions. The attack on Sasso di Sesto/Sextenstein on 21 April 1917 is a clear example of this. The approach of members of the Austro-Hungarian army to the Italian lines took place through a tunnel dug hundreds of meters in the snow. This tunnel made it possible to catch the sentinels by surprise and temporarily conquer the position. It also required the training of departments specialized in the use of winter equipment, including skis used for stealth and surprise attacks as well as sleds for the transport of materials. (GF)

The general staffs, during the war, recruited established artists to tell and promote the war. Official war artists were appointed both for informational and propaganda purposes, and to record events on the battlefield. Their works thus became a sort of reportage of the war and, at the same time, a diary of the experiences of being on the front, since these painter-soldiers noted, day by day, on sheets or canvases, the places visited, and the portraits of their comrades.
Among the war artists who worked on the front of the Three Peaks is the Milanese Lodovico Pogliaghi (1857-1950). After graduating from the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera, he created private and public works for prestigious civil and religious commissions, distinguishing himself as a painter, scenographer, sculptor, goldsmith and engraver; among his most important works is the central door of the Duomo of Milan. At the outbreak of the First World War, almost sixty years old, he enlisted at the Supreme Command as a painter-soldier. Sent to the eastern front, dominated by the Dolomites, he documented the most significant events of the war operations, producing a substantial series of sketches, drawings and oils on cardboard, rendered with the monochrome technique, preserved today in part at the Museo Centrale del Risorgimento in Rome. In his work, the main subject is the alpine landscape which, occupying mostof the surface of the works, relegates human figures to the background.1Pizzo, Pittori soldato della Grande Guerra, pp. 92-97.
In addition to well-known artists such as Lodovico Pogliaghi, works by lesser-known artists were also discovered during the archival research. For example, Antonio Mardepani, unknown as an artist, painted some propaganda watercolors on the life of soldiers at the front and also some winter paintings showing the struggle between man and nature in the high mountains. Also to be mentioned is Angelo Landi (1879-1944), an accomplished painter known for his portraits. He rendered numerous war scenes from his time at the front with pencil and notebooks. In one suggestive drawing entitled I Volti delle Dolomiti, he depicted the Three Peaks with women’s faces.
On the Austrian side, the war painter and officer of the 42 infantry regiment Julius von Kaan-Albest (1874-1941) was sent to the Three Peaks Plateau in February 1916 to make drawings for the Heeresgeschichtliche Museum in Vienna. Best known for his battle paintings, he also painted portraits, one of which was dedicated to the famous mountain guide Sepp Innerkofler. There are also images of the artist Luigi Kasimir (whose baptismal name is Alois Heinrich) (1881-1962), known mainly as a veduta painter and art dealer under National Socialism, who in 1916 made some engravings of the Three Peaks Plateau and the Austrian peaks.
Although the Innsbruck historian Richard Heuberger (1884-1968) cannot be described as a war painter, he did produce a series of pencil drawings and panoramas during his front-line deployment at Toblinger Knoten/Torre di Toblin in 1916, which served military purposes but were also indebted to his enthusiasm for the mountain world and once again show the occupation of the landscape by military infrastructures.

(GF, SK)

Pizzo, Marco (2005). Pittori soldato della Grande Guerra. Roma: Gangemi Editore.

Kofler, Harald (2018). Richard Heuberger (1884-1968). Historiker zwischen Politik und Wissenschaft (Schlern-Schriften 369). Innsbruck: Universitätsverlag Wagner.

Kriegsarchiv Wien, Kriegstagebuch des Infanterieregiments 59, Eintrag vom 17. Februar 1916, 166.

Kaan-Albest, Julius von. In Hans Vollmer (edited by), Allgemeines Lexikon der Bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart. Begründet von Ulrich Thieme und Felix Becker. Band 19: Ingouville–Kauffungen. Leipzig: E. A. Seemann, 1926, 401.

Kaan von Albest Julius, Maler. In Österreichisches Biographisches Lexikon und biographische Dokumentation. Wien, 2003, 162.

J. Bartz, Kasimir, Luigi. In Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon. Die Bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker (AKL). Band 79. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2013, 380 f.

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