Voir et dessiner la Grande Guerre : carnets d’artistes combattants

Abstract

The sketchbooks of combatant artists have been the objects of editions, exhibitions, sales, as well as digitization and virtual exhibitions in the context of the educational projects of the centenary of the Great War. This article studies the philological and heritage issues of the war sketchbook, exploring a variety of contexts and fields: archives and collections, exhibitions, book editions and the illustrated press. Studying the format of the combatant artists’ sketchbooks implies the comparison between iconographic genres and themes, artistic and literary practices, biographical profiles and trajectories. As those sketchbooks contain graphic and chromatic notations, texts and photos, documentary research and montage have to deal with the heterogeneity and the hybridity of their formats, while the practices involved range from artistic experimentation to editorial projects.

Keywords

• visual studies
• album
• combatant artist
• war sketchbook
• art edition
• virtual exhibition