Private Harold Harvey. Frontispiece
A SOLDIER'S SKETCHES UNDER FIRE
By HAROLD HARVEY
LONDON
SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON & CO., LTD.
FORENOTE
A title such as "A Soldier's Sketches Under Fire" indicates at once thenature, scope and limitations of this unpretentious volume of annotateddrawings to which it has been given.
Faked pictures of the war are plentiful. Sketches taken on the spot theydepict, sometimes by a hand that had momentarily laid down a rifle totake them, and always by a draughtsman who drew in overt or covert perilof his life, gain in verisimilitude what they must lose in elaborationor embellishment; are the richer in their realism by reason of theabsence of the imaginary and the meretricious.
All that Mr. Harold Harvey drew he saw; but he saw much that he couldnot draw. All sorts of exploits of which pictures that brilliantlymisrepresent them are easily concoctable were for him impossiblesubjects for illustration. As he puts it himself, very modestly:
"There were many happenings—repulsions of sudden attacks,temporary retirements, charges, and things of that sort that wouldhave made capital subjects, but of which my notebook holds no'pictured presentment,' because I was taking part in them."
He also remarks:
"Sketched in circumstances that certainly had their owndisadvantages as well as their special advantages, I present thesedrawings only for what they are."
Just because they are what they are they are of enduring interest andpermanent value. They have the vividness of the actual, the convincingtouch of the true.
Mr. Harvey was among the very first to obey the call of "King andCountry," tarrying only, I believe, to finish his afterwards popularposter of "A Pair of Silk Stockings" for the Criterion production. Tojoin the Colours as a private soldier, he left his colours as an artist,throwing up an established and hardly-won position in the world of hisprofession, into which—sent home shot and poisoned—he must now fighthis way back. His ante-war experiences of sojourn and travel in India,South and East Africa, South America, Egypt and the Mediterranean shouldagain stand him in good stead, for the more an artist has learned themore comprehensive his treasury of impressions and recollections; themore he has seen the more he can show. To Mr. Harvey's studies ofEgyptian life, character and customs was undoubtedly attributable thesuccess of his "Market Scene in Cairo," exhibited in the Royal Academyof 1909. Purchased by a French connoisseur, this picture brought itspainter several special commissions.
I venture to express the opinion that the simple, direct and soldierlystyle in which Mr. Harold Harvey has written the notes that accompanyhis illustrations will be appreciated. His reticence as regards his owndoings, the casual nature of his references—where they could not beavoided—to his personal share in great achievements, manifest a spiritof self-effacement that is characteristic of the m