Somme journey

This fresco in the cupola of the church in Boves in le département de la Somme et la région Picardie (the department of the Somme, in the region of Picardie) was painted by Gustave Riquet in 1908. In doing some research on Riquet, about whom I wrote here, when I bought a picture by him, I was directed to the Musée de Picardie, who hold two of his pictures and provided this additional information about the decoration of l'eglise de Boves.

Blogging takes one on some unusual journeys. My grandfather fought at the Battle of the Somme (1 July - 18 November 1916), after which more than 1.5 million casualties had been suffered by the forces involved, making it one of the bloodiest military operations ever recorded. At the end of the battle, British and French forces had penetrated a total of 6 miles (9.7 km) into German occupied territory, proving the utter futility of war. My grandfather never talked about his wartime experiences, but my grandmother told me that he lost most if not all of his contemporaries. Sadly the "war to end all wars" quite clearly didn't.

There is an irony that Riquet should have painted this beautiful and charming picture only a few years earlier.