The Wonders of Watercolour: Sir Charles Bell painting on loan at Tate Britain

Watercolour. What is it good for? Absolutely everything! Or so it seems. The versatility of this medium is explored in the all-embracing Watercolour exhibition at Tate Britain until 21 August 2011.

Eight differently themed rooms demonstrate, for example, how watercolour has been used for precise depiction of the natural world, evocative scenes of travel and distant landscapes, and eccentric, charming or disturbing versions of ‘Inner Vision’. A room devoted to ‘Watercolour and War’ includes works ranging from the grotesque carnivalistic scenes of Edward Burra (1905-1976) to graphic depictions of horrific war wounds. In this latter category hangs one of the Battle of Waterloo casualties painted by Sir Charles Bell (1774-1842).

This particular image, selected from an extensive series of Bell watercolours (RAMC/95) held by the Wellcome Library on behalf of the Army Medical Services Museum, shows a soldier suffering the effects of a sabre wound to the stomach, Peltier, Belgian Hospital, 2 July 1815. Lying on his back, shirt pulled up to show what looks like parts of his innards, the soldier’s muted agony and despairing fear is also captured.

Bell’s talent for conveying emotion can be more closely examined in his works on the anatomy and physiology of expression, copies of which are held by the Wellcome Library, including Essays on the Anatomy of Expression in Painting (1806) and Essays on the Anatomy and Philosophy of Expression (1824).

His prolific illustrations of the human body, the human hand, the brain, the arteries and surgical procedures of course also form part of the holdings of the Wellcome Library’s Rare Books Collection and the Paintings, Prints and Drawings Collection.

Exhibition-goers and students of the illustration of war wounds may also be interested in the images hanging next to the Bell watercolour at Tate Britain: First World War facial injuries and reconstructions, which have been loaned to the Tate by the Gillies Archive, Queen Mary’s Hospital Sidcup, Kent.

This is the second loan from the Bell waterclours at the moment (we described the other back in a post late last year). Catalogue descriptions of the entire series of Battle of Waterloo watercolours by Charles Bell held in the RAMC archive can be found by searching the Archives and Manuscripts online catalogue, entering RAMC/95 in the 'Reference' search box. Researchers should note that due to the fragile condition of the original watercolour paintings photographic reproductions only are normally provided for consultation in the Rare Materials Room. However, bonafide research requests to view the originals will be considered.

Images:

- Sabre wound to abdomen, Peltier, Belgian Hospital, 2 July 1815. From Sir Charles Bell's watercolours of wounds sustained by soldiers at the Battle of Waterloo, 1815 (RAMC/95)

- A terrified man holding up his hands. From Charles Bell, 'Essays on the Anatomy and Philosophy of Expression' (1824)

Author: Amanda Engineer

Watercolours from Waterloo: Charles Bell paintings to go on loan

“Johnnie! How can we let this pass? Here is such an occasion of seeing gun-shot wounds come to our very door. Let us go!”

These were the words of the Scottish surgeon, anatomist and neurologist Charles Bell to his brother-in-law on hearing news of the Battle of Waterloo.

Leaving for Belgium on 26 June 1815, Bell took with him his surgical instruments and a sketchbook, in which he could document the injuries he witnessed and tended to. In 1836, he turned his sketches into a series of stunning watercolours, which are on deposit at the Wellcome Library from the [Royal] Army Medical Services Museum. Four of these watercolours are to go on loan to the Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany in Bonn for a major exhibition, 'Napoleon und Europa: Traum und Trauma' ('Napoleon and Europe: Dream and Trauma'), which will run from 17 December 2010 to 25 April 2011.

The watercolours provide us with a graphic representation of the dreadful injuries suffered by soldiers fighting at Waterloo. The images of missing arms, protruding intestines and gaping wounds to the chest and neck - together with the pained expressions on the soldiers' faces - all convey the horror of the scenes witnessed by Bell and other surgeons in the battlefield hospitals.

Bell wrote descriptions to accompany his paintings. For one, of a soldier suffering from a head wound, he noted:

"...On the fifth day after the battle was insensible. A portion of the frontal bone, an inch in diameter, was found driven into the brain, and it stood perpendicularly; not possible to extract it, from its being firmly wedged. Trepanning performed. Quite insensible during the operation and showed no sensibility until on the next day, being bled, he shrank….On the removal of the bone a quantity of blood and brain came out, and coagulum was scooped out from betwixt the skull and dura mater. Three days after the operation he became more sensible, and has been improving."

Although the eventual fate of the soldier described above is not known, it seems that he may have fared better than most of Bell's other patients. At Waterloo, the mortality rate of amputations carried out by Bell ran at approximately 90 per cent - a high figure even for the 1800s. Bell went on to have a successful career, however; he was given a knighthood in 1831 and even lent his name to the medical condition of Bell's Palsy, which he described in 1821. These watercolours are yet another string to this prolific and influential man's bow.

Image: Gunshot fracture of skull, Wanstell, Caserne Elizabeth (RAMC/95/4)

'Napoleon und Europa: Traum und Trauma' ('Napoleon and Europe: Dream and Trauma'), Kunst- und Ausstellungshalleder Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Bonn, 17 December - 25 April 2011.

Authors: Rowan de Saulles and Helen Wakely