Picnicking and war are antithetical. But for artists and writers, the contrast is a powerful incentive to evoke interest and recognition of the paradox. Edwin Landseer’s A Dialogue at Waterloo contrasts Wellington’s return to Waterloo with peasants picnicking on the field. Alexander Gardner’s A Pic-Nic Party at Antietam Bridge, Virginia, 22 September 1862 is a staged picnic beside the bridge, which was the scene of a bloody battle days earlier. Fernando Arrabal’s Picnic on the Battlefield is an anti-war farce. More likely, what is remembered about the poem is the generic approbation that “war is no picnic”. Volker Schlöndorff’s film adaptation of Günter Grass’s The Tin Drum (1979) is a tragic episode in which a troupe of little people picnics on a gun emplacement on the Normandy coast. Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now picnic episode is a satirical version of an evening picnic on the battlefield.
Herman Melville contrasted picnic expectations with the actual tragic violence of war. Such phrases as ”No berrying party” and “No picnic in May” for his poem “The March into Virginia Ending in the First Manassas (July, 1861).” Though the poem remained unpublished until 1866, after the Union was victorious, Melville was sure that his readers would know that Manassas was an ignominious rout for the Union Army:
The banners play, the bugles call,
The air is blue and prodigal.
No berrying party, pleasure-wooed,
No picnic party in May . . .
Edwin Henry Landseer. A Dialogue at Waterloo. oil on canvas. Tate Britain(1850)
Alexander Gardner. A Pic-Nic Party at Antietam Bridge, Virginia, 22 September 1862, stereoscope from Photographic Incidents of the War: Gardner’s Gallery (1862-1865)
Volker Schlöndorff. “June 5, 1944,” The Tin Drum (1979), The screenplay is by Franz Seitz, Jr., Jean-Claude Carrière, Günter Grass, and Volker Schlöndorff, based on Günter Grass’ The Tin Drum (1959).
Francis Ford Coppola. Apocalypse Now (1979). Screenplay by John Milius, Francis Ford Coppola, and Michael Herr 2001)
Carla Marina Almeida and Paul Muir for Picnic (2014) is based on Fernando Arrabal. Picnic on the Battlefield, originally Pique-nique en campagne (1952)
Featured Image: L. Sabattier. “Picnics on the Old Front.” The Illustrated London News (June 14, 1919). Courtesy of John Weedy