‘The first ever anti-football painting’? A consideration of the soccer match in John Singer Sargent’s Gassed

Abstract

The essay presents a discussion of Gassed, a large oil painting by John Singer Sargent displayed at the Imperial War Museum in London. Completed in 1919, Gassed is the major achievement from Sargent’s commission as an official war artist at the appointment of the British War Memorials Committee during the latter period of World War I. Prominent in the painting is a group of soldiers, blinded by a mustard gas attack, being led to a Casualty Clearing Station tent. In the distant background of the painting, another group of soldiers can be seen kitted out in football attire playing a match. The significance of this football imagery is our point of enquiry. As the title suggests, some recent interpretations regard the painting as offering critical reflection, from the time, about the symbolic links between sport and war. However, whilst the painting may certainly be left open to this type of viewer interpretation, archival and secondary resource material-based research does not support such a critical intention by the artist. Yet, nor is there evidence that Sargent’s intention was the projection of war-heroism. Rather, Sargent’s endeavour to faithfully represent what he observed allows Gassed to be regarded as a visual record of routine activity behind the lines and of football as an aspect of the daily life of British soldiers during the Great War.