Classical Peace Art
Click here for webpage listing famous artists, architects & sculptors with the dates & names of peace monuments they created.
Click here for copyrighted images of peace art from the Erich Lessing Culture & Fine Arts Archive.
Click here for "Simbologia de paz: Puede ser una parte de la historia de la paz" from Sapin.
Click here for portraits. | Click here for mosaics. | Click here for murals. | Click here for sculpture. | Click here for visionary peace monuments (folk art).Right click image to enlarge.
2600-2400 BCE - Peace Panel, Standard of Ur, British Museum, London (England). "Peace" [upper image & detail] portrays a banquet scene. Attendants parade animals, fish, and other goods (possibly war booty) before seated figures, while a lyrist entertains the throng." "The 'standard' is a hollow wooden box and a mosaic inlaid with red limestone, lapis lazuli and shells. Its original function is not understood, but it has been suggested it was born upon a pole as a standard, thus its common name, 'The Standard of Ur.' Another suggestion was its use as a carrying case for a musical instrument. Excavated in what was the old royal cemetery in what had been the ancient city of Ur, which was located in modern-day Iraq, south of Baghdad. There are two larger panels – one side depicting peace and the other side war [lower image]."
January 30, 9 BCE - Ara Pacis Augustae / Altar of Augustan Peace, Rome (Italy). Built by Roman emperor Augustus Caesar [63 BC - 14 AD]. Enclosed in 2006 by new building designed by American architect Richard Meier.
1181 - "Noah Receiving the Dove," Augustinian Monastery, Vindobona, near Vienna (Austria). Part of panel #15 of 17 tripartite paels known as the Altar of Verdun. Created during the short interval between the 2nd and 3rd crusades.
Date? - Name?, Location? (France?). Goddess crowning peace? /// This painting shown on cover of " La paix, histoire politique et militaire," for which "Jean-Pierre Bois, professeur émérite d’histoire moderne, a reçu en novembre 2012 le prix Drouyn de Lhuys de l’académie des sciences morales et politiques."
c.1510 - Il Figlio Prodigo / The Prodigal Son, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (Netherlands). By Hieronymus Bosch [c1450-1516]. Also known as The Wayfarer, The Vagabond or The Pedlar.
Circa 1602 - ''Allegorie des Friedens und des Uberflusses / Allegory of Peace, Art and Abundance" by Hans von Aachen [1552-1615], Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg (Russia).
1628 - "The Reconcilation of King Henry III & Henry of Navarre," Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester, Rochester, New York (USA). By Peter Paul Rubens [1577-1640].
1654 - "Allegory of the Peace of Westphalia," Nasjonalgalleriet, Oslo (Norway). Oil on canvas by Flemish painter Jacob Jordaens [1593-1678]. Click here for Wikipedia article about the Peace of Westphalia.
Date? - "An allegory of war and peace" by Jan Brueghel II [1601-1678], location? Sold by Christies, New York City, on Friday, January 26, 2007. Estimate = £15,000 – £20,000.
1654 - "Landscape with Peace & Justice Embracing," Toledo Museum of Art (TMA), Toledo, Ohio (USA). By French painter Laurent de La Hyre [1606-1656].
Circa 1713 - "Feuerwerk am Tempel des Friedens / Fireworks in the Temple of Peace," Wilhelmshöhe Palace, Kassel (Germany). Engraving made on the occasion of the Peace of Utrecht (March-April 1713) by B. Picart, P. Roman & P. Loof.
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1770 - ''Mars & Venus: Allegory of Peace" by Louis Jean François Lagrenée [1724-1805], Getty Center, Los Angeles, California (USA). 33 9/16 x 29 3/4 x 2 in.
1771 - "William Penn's Treaty with the Indians when he founded the Province of Pennsylvania in North America," Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia (USA). Shows proprietor William Penn [1644-1718] signing peace treaty with Delawares at Sackamaxon in 1682. The scene was painted 89 years later by Benjamin West [1738-1820] at the request of Thomas Penn [1702-1775]. William Penn's "Peaceable Kingdom" came to an end with the Conestoga Massacre by the "Paxton Boys" on December 14 & 27, 1763.
1776 - "Peace and War," Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois (USA). Oil on canvas 53.5 x 39 inches, by Italian painter Pompeo Girolamo Batoni [1708-1787].
About 1783 - "Peace of Paris, 1783," Diplomatic Reception Rooms (Top Floor), U.S. Department of State, Washington, DC (USA). "Painting by Benjamin West [1738-1820] of the American delegation at the Treaty of Paris: John Jay, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Henry Laurens [1724-1792], and William Temple Franklin [1760-1823]. The British delegation refused to pose, and the painting was never completed." (The preliminary articles signed in Paris on November 30, 1782, were only effective when a similar treaty was signed by Britain and France, which French Foreign Minister Charles Gravier, Comte de Vergennes [1717-1787], quickly negotiated. France signed preliminary articles of peace with Great Britain on January 20, 1783, which were followed by a formal Peace of Paris signed on September 3, 1783.)
1810-1820 - "Los Desastres de la Guerra / The Disasters of War," Museo del Prado, Madrid (Spain). "A series of 82 prints created between 1810 and 1820 by the Spanish painter & printmaker Francisco Goya [1746-1828]. Although Goya did not make known his intention when creating the plates, art historians view them as a visual protest against the violence of the 1808 Dos de Mayo Uprising, the subsequent Peninsular War of 1808–14, and the setbacks to the liberal cause following the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy in 1814... Goya's scenes of atrocities, starvation, degradation & humiliation have been described as the 'prodigious flowering of rage...' They were not published until 1863, 35 years after his death. It is likely that only then was it considered politically safe to distribute a sequence of artworks criticising both the French & restored Bourbons. In total over a thousand sets have been printed, though later ones are of lower quality, and most print room collections have at least some of the set." /// The print shown here is "Lo Mismo / The Same," showing a man about to cut off the head of a soldier with an axe.
Circa 1833 - "Peaceable Kingdom" by Quaker artist Edward Hicks, Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, Massachusetts (USA). Click here for more information on the "kingdoms of Edward Hicks." Probably painted in Pennsylvania. One of a series of similar paintings by Hicks made over a span of several years. An alegory of of the "peaceable kingdom" established by William Penn in 1682.
1855 - "The Reconcilation of Montagues and Capulets (Over the Dead Bodies of Romeo and Juliet)," Yale Center for British Art, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut (USA). By Frederic Lord Leighton [1830-1896].
1872 - "Hope," a painting by French artist Pierre Puvis de Chavannes [1824-1898], Walters Art Museum, Mount Vernon Place, Baltimore, Maryland, USA. "A woman holds up an oak twig as a symbol of hope for the nation's recovery from war & deprivation after the Franco-Prussian War [1870-1871]."
Damaged steel engraving which blongs to the Swarthmore College Peace Collection & is labeled "Given to Benjamin Trueblood [1847-1916]."
1899? - "Guerre à la guerre / War Against War" by Dutch painter Jan ten Kate [1850-1929], "The Dutch Vereshchagin" (qv). Canvas about 4x5 meters. Fried, Zola, Tolstoy, Czar Nicholas II, Dunant & other famous peacemakers are depicted in the foreground, including Bertha von Suttner [1843-1914] who is raising a Cross to ward off Death. One of three large ten Kate paintings which hung in Jean Bloch's International Museum of War & Peace, Lucerne (Switzerland), from 1902 until 1919/1920. (The other two were "La Garde à Mort/The Death Guard" & "Der Friedensengel/The Angel of Peace.") From Prof Peter van den Dungen 18Oct2013: " I researched [ten Kate's] peace paintings as part of my study of the history of the Bloch museum (published in 1981 in the Swiss Historical Journal), and was not successful in tracing any of the large paintings of his which were in the museum. More recently, colleagues in Lucerne also drew a blank. Arthur [Eyffinger] has reproductions in his books, but is unlikely to know more. I was first approached by a Dutch colleague about the Ten Kate paintings in Lucerne in the late 1970's, and it is frustrating that we are as ignorant now as then. One of the things I have never done is to pursue this matter via the professional art world, where there must exist various registers with the whereabouts of paintings."
1918 - "The Murder of Edith Cavell," Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton, New Jersey (USA). Black chalk and black crayon over charcoal on cream wove paper by Anerican artist George Bellows [1882-1925]. Drawn for a series of 12 lithographs he produced depicting atrocities committed by the German armies in Belgium. Click here for more about Edith Cavell.
1920 - Angelus Novus / "New Angel," Israel Museum, Jerusalem (Israel). By Paul Klee [1879-1940]. "Object of an interpretative text by German philosopher & literary critic Walter Benjamin [1892-1940], who purchased the painting in 1921. In his 'Theses on the Philosophy of History' [1940] Benjamin wrote "...shows an angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage & hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead & make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. The storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress."
Poem by Nicholas Roerich. "Flowers of Moria. The Lady of the Banner of Peace:" "The Lady of the Banner of Peace! Upon You, Our Lady, we set our hopes. Who will raise the Sign of Peace, The Sign of the Preservation of Heavenly Treasures? Who, if not You, will help us To raise the Banner, the Sign of creation for the sake of people? The sea is rough, and whirlwinds are destructive, But You’ll raise the Banner And fill people’s hearts With the consciousness of the sacred Spirit. You know that this Sign must not be put off, You know what destructions the earth has survived, You know how the best things are defamed, The things which are indispensable for people."
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1944 - "Dona Nobis Pacem (Ralph Vaughan Williams)," Flether Trust Collection, Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington (New Zealand). Oil on canvas, 786 x 680 mm. "Rita Angus [1908-1970] admired the English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams [1972-1958], who taught her close friend Douglas Lilburn [1915-2001] in London in the late 1930s. Vaughan Williams was a well-known pacifist and composed the cantata Dona Nobis Pacem (Grant us peace) in 1936. Angus includes scenes from her own life. The apple branch symbolises the pacifist community at Riverside, where she may have had the idea for the painting. She sketched the deserted homestead at nearby Pangatotara. The blonde child on the beach might be Angus herself as a girl."
1944 - "The New Democracy," Palace of Fine Arts, Mexico City (Mexico). "Depicts a woman who is trying to shatter the bonds of oppression and exploitation. She carries a torch of freedom to symbolize the new order. David Alfaro Siqueiros [1896-1974] includes strong visions of the future, similar to Diego Rivera [1886-1957]. Classical influence is shown in his approach to idealize human body form. Sometimes he exaggerates with expressive emotion. With his death came an end to a great movement in modern art."
August 1951 - Scarf to commemorate the 3rd World Festival of Youth & Students for Peace, East Berlin (East Germany). By Pablo Picasso. This WFYS was attended by 26,000 participants from 104 countries. Its motto was: "For Peace and Friendship - Against Nuclear Weapons." Scarf depicts peace dove surrounded by the profiles of four races.
1976 - Untitled, Beirut, Lebanon. Oil on canvas by Abdel Hamid Baalbaki (208 x 370 cm). Exhibited in "The Road to Peace: Paintings in Times of War, 1975-1991," first exhibition in the new Beirut Art Center (June 17-July 14, 2009). "Curated by Saleh Barakat. Hopes to show several artistic experiences directly related to the traumatisms of the Lebanese civil war produced by Lebanese artists and executed between 1975 and 1991. The body of works, in different media and practices, reflects an art that has been seldom shown in galleries or public spaces because of its violence and despair. It was produced under pain and anger in a form of expiation, cleansing and apology from the hostility, brutality and cruelty of a mad environment. 20 artists will be exhibited to highlight a period of the Lebanese art scene that has been kept in the dark for a long time."
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April 1, 1961
1998 - "Sprinkle the Joy of Peace," by Alexandra Nechita, young Romanian artist known as the "Petite Picasso." Painting is for sale.
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P A I N T I N G Early 2012 - Painting of peace & war, Mogadishu (Somalia). By Somali artist Abdullah Abdirahman Abdullah Alif. "A teenage boy - half flesh, half skeleton - stands in the middle of the painting, one hand clutching a dove, the other a rifle. Behind him are two very different futures: verdant fields, juicy melons & pretty buildings versus flames, graves, vultures & fire. 'We made this real simple,' explained Mr. Alif. 'A young boy is the backbone of society, & we want young boys to look at this & understand they have a choice right now, death & destruction or peace.' Mr. Alif, 40, is part of a team of artists who just emerged from years in hiding & have been commissioned, by a Somali nonprofit group, for the respectable wage of $400 a month to make giant paintings promoting peace. Their work will be displayed on busy street corners, the two-dimensional equivalent of a public service advertisement in a society without many TVs. During the Shabab years, Mr. Alif had a price on his head for drawings that were deemed un-Islamic. When he finally fled his neighborhood, looters snatched his file cabinets housing all his artwork. 'Twenty-six thousand drawings,' he said. 'Gone.'"
P A I N T I N G Date? - "Peace" by Youxin Yang.
