On Veterans Day

 by Gregg Chadwick

(First Published November 11, 2010)

Winslow Homer

The Veteran in a New Field

24 1/8" x 38 1/8" oil on canvas 1865

Metropolitan Museum of Art

Veterans Day is more than just a day off. Instead it is a time to reflect on duty, honor, service, and life. Winslow Homer's The Veteran in a New Field portrays a Union veteran of the American Civil War back at work on the farm. But the painting is not instantly celebratory. There are no angels and there is no parade. Instead a psychic weight seems to be guiding the veteran's scythe as it cuts the stand of grain, much like the volleys of shot and shell mowed down troops, on both sides of that brutal war.

There is hope though in the warm, life giving color of the wheat, a Northern crop, and the cerulean sky. All wars must eventually come to an end. Uniforms are cast off. Homer paints the ex-soldier's jacket and canteen tossed onto the newly cut field. Life does go on.

The soldier will inevitably struggle to find his place in the mundane world of civilian work. And the civilian world struggles to understand these warriors bereft of armor and weapons plopped back into society. Wounds need time and care to heal.

Art can help bridge this gap.

Stories need to be told.