Charles Comfort: The Disastrous Dieppe Raid
How does a Canadian war artist paint the horrible battle truthfully?
Artists in the 19th C. were often commissioned by the state to create paintings that glorified war and heroism in battle, to support its reasons for war narrative. War artists like Charles Comfort (1900-1994), a Scotland-born Canadian painter, had a different perspective. As an official war artist during World War II, Comfort witnessed the atrocities of war firsthand and made paintings that depicted its realities, most notably in his painting of the ill-fated Dieppe Raid.
In 1939 Comfort enlisted in the Canadian Armed Forces and became a rifle instructor with the Canadian Officers' Training Corps. By 1943 he was commissioned as a lieutenant to serve as an embedded war artist with the 1st Canadian Infantry Division during the Allied invasion of Italy. He witnessed Canadian Infantry soldiers fighting their way through towns like Ortona. In his 1956 memoir, Artist at War, Comfort wrote his first response to seeing the destruction of this Italian village:
"One felt a choking claustrophobia in the place. Everywhere was misery, death and destruction. I could not possibly paint, or even sketch, on that first dreadful visit."
Painting the Dieppe Raid: Here’s a bit of history first. In 1942, Soviet leader Josef Stalin demanded the Allies open a Western Front. Convinced of a potential invasion, Adolf Hitler began constructing his “Atlantic Wall.” A daring assault was planned for two beaches in Dieppe, France on August 19, 1942. It involved a force of 4,963 Canadian soldiers, Royal Canadian Air Force aircraft and some British troops. The raid was marred by leadership issues, communication problems, and a lack of reconnaissance. There was no aerial bombing before the invasion. Tank arrivals were delayed. There were unexpected fortified barriers on the beach. As soldiers came ashore from landing craft; rifle, machine-gun and mortar fire rained down on them. All this led to devastating consequences, with 70% of the Canadians either killed, wounded, or taken as prisoners.
After the war, Charles Comfort was commissioned to make a painting of the raid. He would reconstruct the scene; with infantry troops arriving at the wide "Red" Beach in the dawn light, making their way toward the demolished Dieppe Casino shown at right. In the distance the tobacco factory burns. At left a few Churchill tanks touch down. Above Douglas A-20 Havoc Bombers provides some coverage, over the piers and the sea wall. Only a few fallen soldiers are shown. The painting is composed like a stage set with a proscenium arch of smoke. Comfort strived for accuracy in his attempts at a reconstruction of the disastrous Dieppe Raid. He revisited the field of battle making many watercolor sketches. He researched the event from written records, personal recollections and photographs.
But how much did he get right, if his painting was made after the fact? What did Comfort embed in his painting given his own feelings about war? Did he paint out his anger given the senseless destruction he witnessed in Italy?
After the war, Charles Comfort returned to Canada to paint landscapes, portraits and murals. He was commissioned to paint a few war narratives, including this one of the Dieppe Raid. In 1956, he published his war diaries, with prose that seem haunted.
Comfort’s visual journalism is subjective, yet his battlefield experience, meticulous research, superlative picture-making and an honest emotional response to war makes his art true.
Comfort’s Controversial Mural: Colonization and Misrepresentation
In 1951 Comfort was commissioned to paint a 62-foot long mural at a Vancouver bank called British Columbia Pageant. It portrays Spanish explorers, European settlers (including Captain George Vancouver and Captain James Cook) and various industrialists colonizing the lands now called British Columbia. It was displayed for 51 years till 2003, when it was taken down, then donated and reinstalled at Simon Fraser University.
Comfort’s commissioned mural is overly illustrative and compresses history for the purposes of creating a compositional tableau. But it misrepresents history by showing colonists as peaceful diplomats in a new land.
As our social and cultural climate has evolved, other imagery found in the mural has been publicly criticized. An Aboriginal Reconciliation Council, set up by the University, recommended (read: demanded) its removal as "colonialist art that is degrading and offensive to indigenous people presented as decorative and passive, using symbols drawn from First Nations’ cultures.” The mural was removed in 2019 and placed in storage.
It's true that the mural fraudulently portrays colonialism as a noble endeavor. The way the Native Americans are portrayed serves to reinforce existing stereotypes rather than provide a nuanced understanding of their cultures and histories. As someone who believes history can educate, I believe that in the right context, Comfort’s mural should be returned and displayed in a public space. It would serve to spark conversation and can teach us about some of the racist and colonialist attitudes that existed in art, in times previous.
Read more about the mural here.
More to Know:
Find a more detailed accounting of the Dieppe Raid here.
A Critical History of War Art in Canada by Laura Brandon
War is hell! I can only imagine trying to paint images of battle in the midst of it all. Imagine what that did to Charles Comfort. And his later images of the colonization. It's difficult to judge what artists did 50-75 years ago and so roundly denigrate them today. Doesn't seem right when we weren't there. Thank you for the great artworks and history of Comfort. Always something new to learn.
Terrible lies and reality, beautifully painted. Much appreciate this art history lesson about Charles Comfort's work.