Monuments, politics, and the cycle of forgetting: Remembering Bashka Paeff’s “Horrors of War”

Posted on November 11, 2017 by Dianne Fallon

In Kittery, Maine, beneath the shade of an oak tree on a peaceful green common stands a monument that once stood in the cross-hairs of a politician who didn’t like its focus on the horrors of war. Today, many pass this monument daily, in their car and on foot, but Bashka Paeff’s beautiful bronze bas-relief sculpture, “The Sacrifices of War,” is now an almost forgotten part of the landscape. This Centennial Year of War War I offers an opportunity to remember Paeff’s original title: “The Horrors of War.”

Bashka Paeff’s sculpture, “The Sacrifices of War,” was dedicated in 1925 as Maine’s Sailors and Soldiers Memorial for those who died in World War I. The newly-opened Memorial Bridge made Route 1 the main gateway into Maine, and the monument, located in Kittery’s John Paul Jones Park, greeted visitors as they crossed the bridge.

Born in Russia in 1894, Paeff immigrated to Boston with her family as an infant. There, she attended the Massachusetts Normal Art School, and then the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, and worked as a subway token collector to support herself during the early stages of her art career.

The State of Maine commissioned the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial in 1919 to memorialize the soldiers and sailors who died in what was then called the Great War. The state had selected this site as part of the Memorial Bridge project designed to ease travel from Portsmouth to Kittery. At the time, an older wooden toll bridge, dating to the 1840s, connected the towns further upriver, but most people travelled back and forth by ferry to Badger’s Island.

Paeff’s mother holds her baby close to protect the child from the horror of war.

Paeff’s sculpture centers on mother protectively holding her child above two dead soldiers who lay by her feet. At the time, according to scholar Jennifer Wingate, the “patriotic mother” was the focus of wartime art and propaganda, and post-war memorials. Images of the patriotic mother might be combined with images glorifying war, for example, a rifle or helmet garlanded with laurel leaves. The “pacifist mother,” by contrast, was associated with Bolshevism and radicalism, and definitely out of the mainstream. Paeff’s portrayal of a pacifist mother, Wingate tells us, “expressed her firmly held view that war memorials should not glorify war” (31).

A dog tries to comfort a soldier who has died.

Another dead soldier has fallen on the left side of the protective mother.

So why did rural and conservative Maine choose to commission a pacifist monument to greet visitors at the state’s main entry point?

In 1924, Maine Governor Percival Baxter, a Republican, worked with a commission that included veterans and other military representatives to select Paeff’s design from 20 proposals. Baxter specifically had solicited proposals that portrayed the devastation and not the glory of war; he wanted a pacifist monument for Maine. The state contracted with Paeff to develop the sculpture and monument for $15,000 (a fee which included all costs associated with building the monument, not just for the sculpture itself).

And then there was an election.

Republican Ralph Owen Brewster, riding on a wave of populist anti-immigration sentiment, and aided by an endorsement from the KKK, was elected governor in 1924 and took office in 1925.

Governor Brewster did not like Paeff’s design, calling it a “more of a glorification of pacifism than of [Maine’s] part in the global conflict” (quoted in Wingate, 35). Paeff had already completed a large clay model of the sculpture, but Brewster declared that he would not pay for it unless Paeff modified the design. A political battle ensued with former Governor Baxter defending the monument in the Portland Press Herald:

The Memorial is striking and teaches a lesson….it portrays the sacrifices made by women and children as well as by men….It would have been easy to have selected the usual form of a memorial with soldiers in uniform carrying guns, making the usual appeal to the martial spirit. The present memorial, however, depicts what war really is” (quoted in Wingate, 36).

Paeff carved this low-relief image of fighting soldiers as part of a compromise with Governor Brewster.

Ultimately Brewster had to honor Paeff’s contract. However, she agreed to some small alterations. In the background, she added two fighting soldiers and a line of marching soldiers, carrying rifles and ready to fight. The background figures, however, are only visible to viewers standing close to the monument. To passersby, they are invisible. And the name of the monument was changed, from “The Horrors of War” to “The Sacrifices of War.”

This low-relief line of marching soldiers was also added to the monument to placate Gov. Brewster.

In an interesting twist, at the dedication ceremony, Major General Clarence R. Edwards, re-branded the monument to align with Governor Brewster’s view. The frightened mother, he said, was appealing “to the soldiery to save her babe from harm” (quoted from various news accounts in Wingate, 36).

Bashka Paeff was still a young woman when she created “The Sacrifices of War” and she went on to a have a prolific and distinguished career, actively working until her death in 1979.

But after a time, the controversy as well as the memorial were forgotten. The bronze tarnished green. The concrete urns that anchor the monument ended up in the Piscataqua River. In 2000-2001, a $40,000 grant paid for the monument’s cleaning and restoration, and “The Sacrifices of War” was rededicated at a ceremony with then-Governor Angus King in May, 2001.

Paeff’s original intent is evident in the memorial, which reminds us of war’s horrors — something generals, soldiers and sailors, military families, and civilians in war zones know all too well, and which the rest of us can all too easily forget. Taking a moment to stop in John Paul Jones Park to look at Paeff’s monument provides us with an opportunity to remember.

Sources and resources

Bashka Paeff was well-known for realistic animal sculptures as well as war memorials, fountains, and portraits. Notable works include the Boy and Bird statue in the Boston Public Gardens, the Lexington Minute Men Memorial, and a statue of President Harding’s pet terrier, Laddie Boy.

“Motherhood, Memorials, and Anti-Militarism: Bashka’s Paeff’s Sacrifices of War, by Jennifer Wingate. Woman’s Art Journal. Fall/Winter 2008, 31-40. Available online via GoogleScholar (the link is not persistent, but the article is easily found).

“Pollution and salty air damage statue,” by Jeremy Corcoran. Portsmouth Herald. September 21, 2000. Updated December 16, 2010.

“Sailors and soldiers reborn,” by Amy Wallace. Portsmouth Herald. December 30, 2000. Updated January 31, 2011.

“Wisdom on war’s waste, ” by Nate Evans. Portsmouth Herald, June 1, 2001. http://www.seacoastonline.com/article/20010601/NEWS/306019984

For more history on the Memorial Bridge, and links to old Kittery photos, see my post, On Bridges and the Jet Set.

Inventing Nature at Acadia National Park

Posted on June 1, 2014 by Dianne Fallon

I love the barren open summits of Acadia National Park on Mount Desert Island, Maine. On Memorial Day, we set out from the Jordan Pond House and completed the 6-mile-ish out-and-back hike to Penobscot and Sargent Mountains.

We started hiking beneath gray skies, just after a shower, but by the time we climbed out of the trees onto the ridge of Penobscot Mountain, the clouds were clearing and the view expanding with each upward step. When we reached the 1,373-foot summit of Sargent Mountain, we breathed in 360-views of a vast panorama: Frenchman’s Bay, the Cranberry Islands, Cadillac Mountain, Eagle Lake, Somes Sound. Black files buzzed around our heads, but couldn’t detract from the awesome experience of these natural vistas. (Below, the view of Jordan Pond on our ascent down Penobscot).

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Samuel de Champlain made this map of the northeastern coast of American on his 1604 voyage.

Mount Desert Island, in this cropped version of Samuel de Champlain’s 1604 map of the northeastern coast of America. (See link at bottom of post to access view of entire map).

However, when explorer Samuel de Champlain “discovered” Mount Desert Island in 1604, he both saw and didn’t see what we see today.

The mountains he described still dominate the view from the bay, but de Champlain was exploring a dark wilderness, full of hidden rock ledges, unknown beasts, and potentially dangerous people. His ship ran aground on a rock that ripped a hole in the keel. Where we see beautiful open summits, de Champlain saw lots of rock, a barren inhospitable desert.

In his description of the island, he wrote, “It is very high, and notched in places, so that there is the appearance to one at sea, as of seven or eight mountains extending along near each other. The summit of the most of them is destitute of trees, as there are only rocks on them. The woods consist of pines, firs, and birches only. I named it Isle des Monts Déserts.”

For the first 18th century European settlers, Mount Desert Island was a desert, an isolated place where hardy families eked out a living from fishing and small farms. But at some point, perspectives changed. The rocky desert became an Arcadia, a version of the ancient Greek district whose name contains layers of meaning, including “idyllic place” and “refuge.”

Mount Desert Island did not change. But our ideas about nature did, largely due to the work of artists who transformed the island from a rocky outpost to a place of inspiration and wonder in which mind, body, and soul could be rejuvenated.

The first to arrive was artist Thomas Cole, the founder of the Hudson River School of landscape painting, who came to Mount Desert Island in 1844, and created several paintings that were widely exhibited in the years to follow. Cole’s pupil Frederic Church followed in his footsteps, making his first trip to the island in 1850, where he sketched and made notes for future paintings. Other artists followed.

Thomas Cole’s “View Across Frenchman’s Bay after a Squall” (1845). Cincinnati Art Museum.

Collectively, at Mount Desert and in other places in the northeastern United States, the Hudson River School of artists invented a new and more romantic concept of nature as a place of beauty, a source of mental sustenance and renewal in the industrial age.

The skies might darken with clouds or twilight, but no longer was the dark a source of uncertainty and fear Instead, the interplay of darkness and light offered another way to view the world’s grandeur. Dangerous surf and forbidding rocks became a source of “the sublime” — that combination of beauty and terror generated by the sight, sound, and feel of a massive wall of water crashing against a cliff.

“Sunset, Bar Harbor,” by Frederic Church (1854). Possibly influenced by writer Henry Thoreau’s essays about travels in the Maine woods, Church returned to Maine to visit the North Woods. He eventually bought property in the Millinocket area, where he painted Mount Katahdin and other landscapes. But that’s a blog post for another day.

Although marketing was not their intention, in reinventing “Nature,” the Hudson River painters who visited Mount Desert created a place that many wanted to visit. In the mid-19th century, newly middle-class “rusticators” began to come to the island. They boarded in locals’ homes, took long walks and hikes, and breathed in the smell of the Atlantic.

Then, during the Gilded Age, the super-wealthy discovered the island, built massive summer homes, and transformed the rocky desert to a high society destination. Eventually, some of those people, led by George Dorr and John D. Rockefeller, Jr., donated large chunks of land so that this natural wonderland could be enjoyed by all Americans and not just a wealthy few. The Park was established in 1919, thanks in large part to Dorr, Rockefeller, and others. But the idea of nature as being worthy of preservation was the creation of 19th century artistic visionaries–the painters, but also writers like Henry Thoreau and John Muir, and photographers like Yellowstone’s William Henry Jackson—who transformed the way we think about nature.

Noted maritime artist Fitz Henry Lane, of Gloucester, Massachusetts, travelled to Mount Desert and to paint this scene, titled “Off Mount Desert,” in 1856. (Brooklyn Museum).

Today students who study the arts (in all of its forms) often have to endure questions about the value of what they are doing. How they will support themselves? When will they stop dreaming and get a real job? After all, the arts are “decoration,” nice if you have the time to dabble, but not essential.

These questions about the value of art are not a new phenomenon. And of course, it is difficult to make a living an artist. But artists and writers, as much or more so than scientists and engineers, are inventing the future as they shape and create ideas.

What ideas are artists, writers, and musicians transforming today?

Note: Take a peek below for examples of how artists continue to follow in the footsteps of Cole, Church, Lane and others today. For more information on another great hike in Acadia, see my paragraph about Mount Dorr via the Homans Path in Five Great Family Hikes in Maine.

Mount Desert III, 1996, by Richard Estes. The Portland Museum of Art is exhibiting a major retrospective collection of Estes' work this summer (2014).

Mount Desert III, 1996, by photorealist painter Richard Estes. The Portland Museum of Art, in partnership with the Smithsonian Museum of American Art, is exhibiting a major retrospective collection of Estes’ work this summer (2014).

For more on the Estes exhibit, see the Portland Museum of Art website.

Artist Philip Koch pays tribute to Thomas Cole and other 19th century landscape painters in his painting, “Frenchman’s Bay.”

To learn more about Philip Koch, see his blog.

Head of Somes Sound, by Ernest McMullen.

For more on artist Ernest McMullen, see The Gallery at Somes Sound.

Additional sources and resources:

Entire de Champlain map of northeastern coast of America, from his 1604 voyage. Champlain quote from Memoir of Samuel de Champlain, Volume II, 1604-1610, Chapter 5.

For more on Frederic Turner’s paintings in Maine (including many in the Millinocket region), see John Wilmerding’s Maine Sublime: Frederic Edwin Church’s Landscapes of Mount Desert and Mount Katahdin. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2012.

“Mount Desert Island and Isle au Haut (Modern Acadia National Park, ME)”. National Park Service Archeology Programs.

Mount Desert Island: Shaped by Nature. Maine Memory Network.

Art amidst the mills of North Adams

Posted on February 14, 2014 by Dianne Fallon

Fall leaves and outdoor swimming go great together!

A decaying mill town on a gray November weekend in an isolated corner of Massachusetts might seem an unlikely destination, but North Adams had been on my radar for a while.

The Massachusetts Museum of Modern Art (Mass MoCA) offered intriguing, colorful and large-scale modern art likely to engage a 12-year-old non-artsy boy. The Porches Inn provided a 24-hour outdoor heated pool and hot tub. And Spruce Hill, just outside of town, is listed in Jeffrey Romano’s book, 100 Classic Hikes in New England. Plus, right above town, we could experience the hair-pin turn on Route 2. Why go to Disney World when North Adams awaits?

North Adams is a classic New England mill town, with acres and acres of massive red-brick empty mill buildings. Manufacturing in North Adams dates back to the Revolution, but now industry is all but dead, the final nail in the coffin coming with the 1985 closure of the Sprague Electric Company plant on Marshall Street (previously the home of the country’s largest textile print mill). The Sprague plant was much more than a small-town components factory; it had state-of-the-art equipment and served as the company’s research and development center. Employees included physicists and electrical engineers as well as line workers making electrical components. At its peak in the 1960s, the company employed more than 4,000 workers. The 1985 closure struck a massive blow to the community.

In the 19th century, sheep farmers in the hills around North Adams abandoned their fields for the relative comforts offered by row houses in the town.

In the 19th century, sheep farmers in the hills around North Adams abandoned their farms for jobs in the mills and the comforts offered by the row houses in town (on the Spruce Hill hike).

Soon after plant’s closure, town officials set their sights on reviving the town. In 1999, Mass MoCA opened at the sprawling Sprague complex to become the world’s largest contemporary art museum. Although it’s unlikely that art will ever replace Sprague’s 4,000 jobs (plus the related jobs in other businesses), Mass MOCA has served as the cornerstone of the town’s revival, with other art galleries opening in its wake, along with restaurants, shops, and The Porches Inn.

Mass MoCA is fun – the perfect art outing for families with tweens or teens (and many were wandering around the place). Kids who might be bored with the portrait galleries of the Museum of Fine Arts will find much here to intrigue them. The exhibits are constantly changing.

When we visited, Jason Middlebrook’s monumental hanging water fountain sculpture, Falling Water, packed a big “wow” factor. Mark Dion’s Octagon Room offered an intriguing bunker-like space to explore. The colorful patterned paintings of S ol Lewitt (more or less on permanent exhibit) provide hope to non-artists that they too can create something beautiful, as Lewitt allows others to use his patterns to recreate his art.

The marble bridge, unique in North America, offers another sort of sculpture at Natural Bridge State Park, just outside of town.

European sculptor Joseph Beuys’s three-dimensional montage, Lightening with Stag in Its Glare, intends, per the catalog, to evoke “the spiritual power of animals and nature” while celebrating “the victory of socialist warmth and self-determination over materialist greed and alienation.” For kids, however, the most interesting question is whether the irregularly shaped brown objects lying on the floor are lacquered turds or primordial worms (or perhaps both).

Just getting up to see Michael Oatman’s Airstream trailer repurposed as some kind of exotic aircraft (titled “The Shining”) is a unique museum adventure. Visitors have to climb a few flights of stairs past old boilers and pipes to reach the outdoor platform where the trailer is perched. The rusted pipes and equipment, which probably clanked and boiled well into the 1980s, now seem ancient.

A chilly November dawn in North Adams.

Across the street from MASS MoCA, the Porches Inn is laid back and easy-going, with 24/7 access to the hot tub, sauna and pool. Visitors can order happy hour drinks at the small bar and sip them in the living room. We decided to catch the sunrise each morning from the hot tub, although we kept forgetting to get up early enough due to the recent “fall back” switch to Eastern Standard Time. Although we missed the official moment of the sun rising, we enjoyed sitting in the hot tub sipping fresh coffee and watching the pink sky.

The 3.5-mile loop hike up to Spruce Hill provided a good opportunity for leg-stretching and views of North Adams and Mount Greylock. The loop trail through the forest took us along a massive beaver swamp, with many freshly chewed trees. The beavers remained hidden.

View from the summit of Spruce Hill, with Mount Greylock in the background. The ledge was slippery, with a steep drop-off on one side. I lost my footing and fell hard on my behind, but at least I was on the right of the ledge!

In Mass MoCA, I took plenty of photos of the art, but I can’t publish those shots online. So when I was in North Adams, I tried to make my own art by shooting artsy photos. If you don’t know what they are, then I guess I have succeeded in creating modern abstractions (see below).

By the way, last year, on this same November weekend, we made our first-ever trip to Orlando to visit Harry Potter world at Universal Studios. Jeremy rated that trip as a five-star adventure. Our weekend in North Adams: 4.5 stars. A pretty good rating, I’d say, for a place that exemplifies “November” in New England (i.e. gray, barren, and chilly). Chamber of Commerce, take note: with the right spin, marketing North Adams as the alternative destination for families weary of roller coasters just might work.

What kind of monster beavers can fell a tree this thick?

Stream in fall.

Modern art in the forest: the exposed veins of a tree.

The Maniacal Traveler

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Tag Archives: Art

Monuments, politics, and the cycle of forgetting: Remembering Bashka Paeff’s “Horrors of War”

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Inventing Nature at Acadia National Park

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Art amidst the mills of North Adams

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