War: Otto Dix (1929-1932) - Chapter 27

This painting shows in detail what the war was like in WWI. This painting is very graphic considering everything is destroyed, legs have bullet holes in them (upper right), bodies are mangled (bottom right corner), buildings are even crushed. it looks as if everything has been bombed and gassed. Everything is so dark and gloomy, which to me seems like life can no longer live there. But if you look to the middle left of the painting you'll see a survivor. He has a helmet, a gas mask, and a cape. His life may be over shortly though because right above the survivor is a dead body hanging on a frame. If you look to the clouds, it looks as if the land where the light is is perfectly fine, but once the shadows get to the green land, it'll destroy it and turn it into darkness. I think this is supposed to represent Europe because the darkness could be Germany and it's consuming everything in it's path.

Machine Gun: Christopher Nevinson (1915) - Chapter 27

In this painting, three French soldiers are working a machine gun. WWI was the first war where machine guns were used and killed so many. It took 3-4 people to work a machine gun because the first model machine gun would jam a lot and it took a team to unjam in quickly so they could fire at the enemy faster. The "shooter" in this painting looks very concentrated while shooting at the enemy. It must have taken a lot of concentration to fire an old time machine gun because I would imagine it would bounce around a lot. The guy below the "shooter" looks as if he is concentrating too. It looks like he is the "spotter" and may tell the "shooter" where people are. The person behind the shooter and spotter looks like he may be yelling something. He could be yelling something because the soldiers are being fired on and he's telling the "shooter" and "spotter" something. I chose this painting because it portrays what war was like during this time period. The painting contains the machine gun team in a trench and that was exactly what the war tactics were back then.

Trench Foot - Chapter 27

As my teacher Ms. Mazzante (Maz) was talking in class about trenches and how they armies would have their trenches about 100 yards away from each other then have a big open space between them was called "No Mans Land" she showed our class a picture. This picture shows a soldier with trench foot. Maz explained that the soldiers would live in these trenches for months on end. With trenches being damp and unsanitary, it caused a build up of bacteria on the soldiers feet. The bacteria would mutilate soldiers feet and it caused toes to deform and become mishapen, skin fell off exposing bone, and toe nails would sometimes become black.

If I was to ever lose my feet due to trench foot, I would be very upset. Since I play soccer, I need my feet and I would very much appreciate having my feet. I think that trench foot is very disgusting and unfortunate. I think that trench foot could be considered another warfare tactic. An army could make the enemy set up trenches, then have them stay in there for months on end so that some of the soldiers could get trench foot. While the enemy has trench foot you could some how get in the enemy's trench because with trench foot the enemy wouldn't be able to move at all.