Still Life

When you illustrated "Victoria Story No. 6" with the magnificent linocut of skulls, shells and so on, you should, perhaps, have added some comment.

Entitled "Still Life", it first appeared in Salient" in 1938, when V.U.C.'s political alertness and war handedness was at its height, and was the work of a V.U.C. student.

In addition to the more obvious symbolism, is is worth noting the little conventionalized stooped human figures on whose shoulders the whole weight of war is depicted as resting, and which are distorted beautifully into forms reminiscent of swastikas; and the bending crosses, suggesting not only the overworked nature of contemporary graveyards, but also the perversion of Christianity necessitated by its accommodation to war as a matter of state policy.

—Victorian.