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A-Level: War – memorials

Maya Lin, Vietnam Veterans Memorial, 1982, granite, 2 acres within Constitution Gardens, (National Mall, Washington, D.C.) — A powerful accumulation of names is inscribed on slabs of reflective stone that cuts into the earth on the Mall.

Maya Lin, Vietnam Veterans Memorial

by Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker

Claes Oldenburg, Lipstick (Ascending) on Caterpillar Tracks, 1969-74, detail — This sculpture, installed on the Yale campus during Vietnam War protests, was never meant to be permanent.

Claes Oldenburg, Lipstick (Ascending) on Caterpillar Tracks

by Dr. Mya Dosch

Henry Merwin Shrady (sculptor) and William Pearce Casey (architect), Ulysses S. Grant Memorial with the US Capitol Building in the background — Shrady’s sneaky self-portrait within this sculpture took on tragic connotations after the monument claimed his life.

Shrady and Casey, Ulysses S. Grant Memorial

by Julia Langley

Genius of Liberty (detail), François Rude, La Marseillaise (The Departure of the Volunteers of 1792), 1833-6, limestone, c. 12.8 m high, Arc de Triomphe de l’Etoile, Paris — Royal ambivalence? Rude’s Arc de Triomphe sculpture had a revolutionary message, but the endorsement of the king.

François Rude, La Marseillaise