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"Panthéon de la Guerre" at 100: The colossal war painting that time forgot

100岁时的《游击队：那时候被遗忘的战争巨作》

密苏里州堪萨斯城的国家一战博物馆和纪念馆的纪念馆墙壁上今天所看到的“万神殿”的一部分。

Less than a month before the end of World War I, a huge painting commemorating the war effort was unveiled in central Paris. Its creators wanted to honor the greatest war the world had ever seen with the greatest painting ever made, and they had spent the previous four years working on it with the help of 150 artists.

距离第一次世界大战结束不到一个月，一幅纪念这场战争的巨幅画作在巴黎市中心亮相。它的创作者希望用有史以来最伟大的画作来纪念这场世界上最伟大的战争，他们在150位艺术家的帮助下花了四年时间来创作这幅画。

这幅原始画布的碎片，周长402英尺，展示了两个英国空军官员。

The result was the world"s largest painting at the time, set on a panoramic canvas measuring 402 feet (122 meters) around and 45 feet (13.7 meters) high. It contained over 5,000 life-size portraits of war heroes, royalty and government officials from the Allies of World War I, with France dominating the stage. The painting was so big that a custom building had to be constructed to accommodate it.

这幅作品是当时世界上最大的一幅油画，背景是一幅四周402英尺（122米）、高45英尺（13.7米）的全景画布。其中有5000多幅真人大小的战争英雄、皇室成员和来自第一次世界大战盟国的政府官员的肖像，法国在舞台上占据主导地位。这幅画太大了，不得不建造一座定制的建筑来容纳它。

这个片段显示的是英国红十字会的护士。

The "Panthéon de la Guerre" (meaning "Pantheon of the War") was unveiled, to great fanfare, on Oct. 19, 1918. In the century that followed, it was chopped up, auctioned off, hidden away and even stored outdoors in a crate for a decade before finding its place on the walls of the National World War I Museum and Memorial in Kansas City, Missouri, 4,500 miles away from the start of its unlikely journey.

1918年10月19日，“战争万神殿”（意为“战争的万神殿”）大张旗鼓地揭幕。在随后的一个世纪里，它被切碎、拍卖、藏起来，甚至在户外的板条箱里存放了10年，然后在距离它不太可能的旅程开始4500英里之外的密苏里州堪萨斯城的国家一战博物馆和纪念馆的墙上找到了它的位置。

A blockbuster of the day

辉煌的开始

Work on the painting had begun, with astonishing foresight, just a few months into the war, in the winter of 1914. The idea came from two French artists with previous experience in panoramas, Pierre Carrier-Belleuse and Auguste François-Marie Gorguet.

1914年冬天，战争刚开始几个月，就以惊人的远见开始了这幅画的创作。这一创意来自两位有过全景画创作经验的法国艺术家，皮埃尔·卡利·贝卢斯（Pierre Carrier Belleuse）和奥古斯特·弗朗索瓦·玛丽·戈尔盖（Auguste François Marie Gorguet）。

Together, they enlisted an array of painters -- particularly elderly ones, as many young ones were on the front line -- and obtained financial and political support, which was essential due to the scale of the project and the materials required. Among the latter were 18,000 square feet of Belgian linen for the canvas, tons of steel armature to support it and enormous amounts of paint, all of which were at a premium in wartime.

他们一起召集了一批画家，特别是老年画家，因为许多年轻人都在前线，并获得了财政和政治支持，这是由于项目规模和所需材料的缘故。后者中有1.8万平方英尺的比利时帆布亚麻布、用于支撑的吨钢电枢和大量油漆，这些都是战时的溢价。

"Their intent was patriotic, but also commercial," said Mark Levitch, an art historian at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, and author of "Panthéon de la Guerre: Reconfiguring a Panorama of the Great War," in a phone interview. "Panoramic paintings like this were money-making ventures -- the Hollywood blockbusters of the day. But it was really a 19th-century phenomenon, and this was sort of its last gasp."

“他们的意图是爱国，但也是商业，”华盛顿国家艺术馆艺术史学家马克·莱维奇（MarkLevitch）在电话采访中说，“帕顿·德拉格雷尔：重新塑造伟大战争全景”一书的作者像这样的全景画是赚钱的冒险——好莱坞的大片。但这确实是19世纪的现象，这是它最后一次喘息。”

今天的“战争万神殿”

The painting was hung in a complete, uninterrupted circle; visitors descended into a tunnel to emerge right in the middle of it. The custom-built, octagonal building that housed it was enviably located in Rue de l"Université, steps from Les Invalides and just a few blocks from the Louvre. It was inaugurated by French President Raymond Poincaré, himself immortalized on the canvas, less than a month before the end of the war -- timing that was "mostly serendipitous," as Levitch puts it.

这幅画被挂在一个完整的、不间断的圆圈里；游客们进入隧道，正好出现在它的中间。这座定制的八角形建筑坐落在洛夫宫街，离残疾人院仅几条街远，令人羡慕。这是法国总统波因卡（RaymondPoincaré）在画布上不朽的就职典礼，在战争结束前不到一个月——正如莱维奇所说，时间“大多是偶然的”。

最初的“战争万神殿”

Although a circular painting has, technically no center, the main focus of the "Panthéon de la Guerre" was a temple and staircase, representing the French section that spanned about 122 feet. This segment contained most of the 5,000 figures portrayed in the painting, with the rest split between other Allied nations including Britain, Italy, Russia and the United States, each given a space of around 32 feet or less. The background was meant to represent the battlefields of France and Belgium.

虽然一幅圆形的绘画在技术上没有中心，但“Panthéon de la Guerre”的主要焦点是一座庙宇和楼梯，代表了跨度约122英尺的法国部分。这一部分包含了画中描绘的5000个人物中的大部分，其余的被其他盟国（包括英国、意大利、俄罗斯和美国）分割开来，每个国家的空间大约为32英尺或更少。背景是为了代表法国和比利时的战场。

The search for figures worthy of appearing in the artwork was painstaking.

"They sifted through the press and read the citations of the day, to see who was killed and find out who was most deserving of being put in this sort of encyclopedia of the French war effort," Levitch said. "They got photographs of people who had been killed and made sketches from those, while others, such as government officials, were sketched in person."

寻找值得出现在艺术品中的人物是非常艰苦的。

莱维奇说：“他们在报纸上筛选，阅读当天的引文，看看谁被杀了，找出谁最值得被放进这本法国战争努力的百科全书。”他们得到了遇害者的照片，并用这些照片做了素描，而其他人，如政府官员，则是亲自素描的。”

Touring to America

在美国展览

The "Panthéon de la Guerre" remained in its Paris home for nine years and was seen by three million people. "It was as much for tourists as it was for the French, and seemed particularly popular with American soldiers," Levitch said.

“战争的万神殿”在巴黎的家里呆了9年，有300万人看到了它莱维奇说：“这对游客和法国人来说一样重要，而且似乎特别受美国士兵的欢迎。”。

In 1927, as interest started to wane, it was bought by three American businessmen who wanted to send it on a US tour.

1927年，随着人们对它的兴趣开始减弱，三位美国商人买下了它，他们想把它送去美国展览。

"I think they bought it for something like 250,000 dollars, real money for the time, and it had a very high-profile sendoff that I suspect was meant as much for American eyes as it was for the French," Levitch said.

莱维奇说：“我想他们花了大约25万美元买下了它，当时真的很有钱，而且它有一个非常引人注目的销声匿迹，我怀疑这对美国人的眼睛和法国人的意义是一样的。”。

The creators of the painting were opposed to the sale, fearing they would never see it again, although the buyers promised to eventually return it. The sendoff involved ambassadors and bands playing national anthems, in the hope that the "Panthéon de la Guerre" would cement Franco-American relations. A few modifications were made, most notably the inclusion of more women and African-Americans.

这幅画的创作者反对出售，担心再也看不到它，尽管买家承诺最终会退货。送别仪式由大使和乐队演奏国歌，希望“Panthéon de la Guerre”能巩固法美关系。进行了一些修改，最显著的是纳入了更多的妇女和非裔美国人。

Its first stop was New York"s Madison Square Garden, where it attracted one million visitors in eight weeks. "They had an appropriately gargantuan opening night with 25,000 people and lots of notables, but it ended up closing two months ahead of schedule, so they were obviously not making as much money as they had hoped," Levtich said.

它的第一站是纽约麦迪逊广场花园，在那里它在八周内吸引了一百万游客。”他们有一个相当庞大的开幕之夜，有25000人和许多名人，但最终提前两个月结束，所以他们显然没有赚到他们所希望的那么多钱，”Levtich说。

The painting, just like the war itself, was perceived very differently in the US. France had suffered about 1.7 million deaths in the conflict, whereas the US, which entered the war in 1917, lost around 117,000. Americans had a faint, mostly celebratory memory of the war; the French a rather vivid, bloody one.

这幅画，就像战争本身一样，在美国被认为是非常不同的。法国在这场冲突中死亡约170万人，而1917年参战的美国则损失了约11.7万人。美国人对这场战争有一种微弱的、主要是庆祝性的记忆；法国人则是一种相当生动、血腥的记忆。

"It was not promoted as the solemn painting that it was," Levitch said. "Instead, there were blow horns and even machine guns in Chicago for the 1933 World Fair. It was almost like a carnival attraction, but that"s not the spirit of the painting at all. It"s really rather quiet for all its grandiosity."

莱维奇说：“这幅画并没有被宣传成是一幅庄严的画。”取而代之的是，1933年的世界博览会上，芝加哥出现了吹喇叭甚至机关枪。这几乎像是一个嘉年华景点，但这根本不是绘画的精神。它真的很安静，尽管它很宏伟。”

Nearly sold for scrap

差点当做废品卖掉

The last stop on the painting"s US tour was San Francisco in 1940. At that point, the artwork was falling out of fashion and was sent to a storage facility in Baltimore, where it laid abandoned for 12 years in the almost tomb-like, 55-foot crate originally built for it in Paris. Because the painting was too big to keep indoors, it was left outside, and once the owner stopped paying the storage fee -- due to being caught up in World War II in Europe -- it was auctioned off.

这幅画在美国巡演的最后一站是1940年的旧金山。当时，这件艺术品已经过时了，被送到巴尔的摩的一个储藏室，在那里被遗弃了12年，放在巴黎最初为它建造的一个几乎像坟墓一样的55英尺长的板条箱里。因为这幅画太大了，不能放在室内，所以被放在室外，一旦主人停止支付保管费——因为在欧洲卷入了第二次世界大战——它就被拍卖了。