I think that there was always the hope that it could influence the way people thought about war. That it could alert people to its horrors and prevent it occurring again. You see, I was born during the First World War in 1915, and my earliest experiences were with people who were in that war or remembered the war very vividly, and then, just when I was beginning to paint, the Second World War began. So war became a kind of lurking terror in my mind from infancy through to late adolescence, when it was all building up again for another one.
I had Millet’s Sower in mind when I painted it. This is a 20th-century ‘Sower’ and the dislocated limbs represent humanity out of gear, the bleak landscape represents the present period, whereas Millet’s landscape showed fertility.
Signed and dated l.l. corner, pale blue oil "'44/ Gleeson".