Seeing is Believing
War through the Eyes of a Combat Artist
American artists have chronicled war for centuries -- John Singleton Copley'sThe Death of Major Peirson (1784), Winslow Homer's Sounding Reveille (1865), and El Pozo (1898) by William Glackens, to name just a few. The advent of an official U.S. military art program, however, arrived in World War I when eight artists were commissioned to record the activities in Europe of the American Expeditionary Forces. Following the war, most of the work produced became part of the Smithsonian Institution.
The military's efforts to document war through the arts were re-activated during World War II, giving rise to programs such as the Army's War Art Unit and the Navy's Combat Art Program. Since the Second World War, each branch of the military, including the Coast Guard, has established its own art program. Together, these programs have covered conflicts from the Korean War to Vietnam. More recently, artists have been sent to Desert Shield/Storm, Iraq, Afghanistan, and various other missions and humanitarian operations.
One such artist is Michael D. Fay, a painter, illustrator, and retired chief warrant officer for the Marine Corps. The Marines credit World War I artist Colonel John W. Thomason, Jr. with starting their artistic tradition, but the official Marine Corps Combat Art Program began in WWII under the guidance of Brigadier General Robert Denig. When embedding artists alongside correspondents, photographers, and filmmakers, Denig's philosophy was this: "At peace or at war, man cannot live by bread alone. A special case for art in time of war may be made, for it is then that man's spiritual, as well as physical, being is most severely in need of sustaining strength."
Fay's philosophy of why it's important to have artists side by side with troops on the battlefield is simpler: "They just don't want to be invisible."
As a combat artist in Iraq and Afghanistan, Fay embedded himself with Marines and captured them both in the throes of combat, as well as in quiet, everyday moments. One of only a handful of combat artists across the services, Fay came to his profession in a "serendipitous" way. Enlisting in the Marines from 1975–78, he then went on to receive a degree in art education from Pennsylvania State University. After struggling to find a teaching job, he reenlisted in the Marines from 1983–1993, and it was then that Fay started sketching "slice-of-life" moments.
For the next few years, Fay held several jobs, but none in the arts. After a chance encounter with Colonel Donna Neary, a Marine reservist and former combat artist who owned an art gallery in Fay's hometown of Fredericksburg, Maryland, Fay's sketches won him a place back with the Marines in 2000, but this time working with the Marine Historical Center (now part of the National Museum of the Marine Corps). Following the events of September 11, 2001, Fay was deployed four times, creating art in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bahrain, and Oman.
"The Marine philosophy has always been, ‘Go to war, do art,'" emphasized Fay. "This is not for propaganda purposes or to make posters…. [Y]ou are expected to go out with the troops and to make art from their experiences."
To gain this level of access, combat artists must earn a high level of respect from both the officers and troops. "I'm often asked if I'm an artist first or a soldier, and it's not a static thing; it's very dynamic," explained Fay. "If you go out with a unit and you are not value-added in combat, word will spread and you won't go out again…. They need to know that if things get out of control, you will drop the sketch book, pick up a gun, and start shooting."
Unlike combat photography, which records a singular moment in time, combat art can capture and interpret the entire experience. For Fay, living this experience, especially while out on active duty, was the first and most important part of the art-making process. He often took digital pictures and brought an audio recorder to help him document the events.
"What I'm doing creatively then is I'm having 