World's Arms

One day last week in West Point's grey Gothic mess hall the cadets of the U. S. Military Academy looked up from their meal, beheld for the first time the final and complete version of Decisive Battles of the World. A 70-ft. mural by T. (for Tom) Loftin Johnson, it was not only the Academy's most pretentious art possession but also the largest single panel painted in the ancient egg tempera technique ever attempted in the U. S. Thirty-five dozen fresh eggs were mixed with oil to make a tough clinging varnish for the work. Depicted amid a blaze of banners and military pomp were the great battles of the past and their leaders.

Basing his work on Sir Edward Creasy's original book, The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World, which ends with Waterloo; Artist Johnson added Babylon, Crecy, Gettysburg, the First Marne; introduced such characters as Richard Coeur de Lion, Columbus, Ferdinand and Isabella. Cyrus of the Persians besieges Babylon (538 B. C.) At Marathon (490 B. C.) Miltiades and the Greeks hew down the Persians. Alexander the Great gestures imperially to his invincible Macedonians. The Roman Legions' S.P.Q.R. banner rises in triumph over Hasdrubal. Joan of Arc, whose face resembles that of Whitney Museum Director Juliana Force, lifts her sword over the English at Orleans (1429). Charles Martel, William the Conqueror, Napoleon, Wellington, Kellermann, Gustavus Adolphus, Peter the Great, Charles of Sweden, Gates at Saratoga, Meade at Gettysburg, Joffre at the Marne-- all are there for the edification and inspiration of West Pointers.

Artist Johnson started the Academy mural as a PWA job in December 1933, moved to West Point with two assistants in April 1935. Total cost: about $4,000, an astonishingly small sum for so large a work. Major General William Durward Connor, Superintendent at West Point, gave the artists plenty of advice on military matters, successfully requested that Napoleon be painted standing so that Wellington did not overshadow him. Like their commander, the cadets made numerous suggestions, once left for Artist Johnson this note:

"Please darken the leggin's in front of Pheidippides' stomach. From a distance this gives him the appearance of potgut. Don't you think him a shade pink for a warrior? And WHAT is that black face behind Miltiades? It is only because we are very enthusiastic that we would dare offer a suggestion. We see it from a distance as it will mostly be seen. It will be a fine mural. PLEASE get on P's potgut though."

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