Existing comment:
George Bellows Imagines Edith Cavell's Final Moments
During the spring and fall of 1918, Bellows responded to reported German atrocities in Belgium with a series of hard-hitting drawings, lithographs, and paintings. The protagonist of this dream-like image is British Red Cross nurse Edith Cavell who tended to both German and Allied wounded. For her role in helping some 200 Allied prisoners escape via neutral Holland, German authorities accused her of treason and shot her in 1915. Bellows portrays her as an angelic, martyr-like figure who appears to glow as she descends a staircase. At its base, her executioners wait in the shadows. |