The 18 Greatest War and Battle Paintings of All Time

Conflict has existed since the beginning of time, and artists have captured the atrocities and hardships of war every step of the way.

Picasso’s Guernica and Goya’s The Third of May may be two of the first war paintings that come to mind, but there are many noteworthy works created between, before, and after these two masterpieces.

These greatest war and battle paintings deserve just as much attention. Below, you’ll find the 18 best paintings of war, from earliest to most recent.

greatest war paintings — Photo Credit: Paolo Uccello

Uccello’s three-painting series celebrates Florence’s victory over Sienese forces in 1432. These paintings were extremely coveted in the 15th century—so much so that a member of Italy’s Medici family decided to purchase one for himself and move the other two to the Medici palace.

In the 333 B.C. Battle of Issus, Alexander the Great claimed victory over Darius III of Persia, furthering his agenda against the Persian Empire. Altdorfer’s painting of this conflict strays from the pack since it is in portrait orientation, atypical for war paintings. Interestingly enough, Altdorfer is also one of the masters of landscape art.

When painter Velázquez took a trip to Italy with Genoese general Ambrogio Spinola, who conquered Breda, Netherlands, on June 5, 1625, the inspiration for this painting was born. The conquest of Breda is considered one of the Spanish military’s greatest triumphs during the closing of the Eighty Years’ War.

Consequences of War, alternately titled Horrors of War, is one of the earliest activist paintings. It is an allegorical representation of the Thirty Years’ War that Central Europe struggled through from 1618 to 1648. The painting depicts Mars, the god of war, marching from the Temple of Janus while Venus attempts to hold him back.

This painting was made to commemorate British Major Francis Peirson, who was shot dead by a French sniper in the process of defending Jersey against French invasion in 1781. This work was first put on display in May 1784, upon which occasion art critic Simon Wilson said its “chorus of praise reached all the way to Buckingham Palace.”

Quote: Simon Wilson, Tate Gallery: An Illustrated Companion, Tate Gallery, London 1990, p.35, reproduced p.35, in colour.

In 1798 the citizens of Cairo revolted (unsuccessfully) against the French occupation led by Napoleon Bonaparte. Twelve years later, Vivant Denon, the first Director of the Louvre museum, commissioned Girodet to recreate this bloody event on canvas to celebrate France’s victory. This painting isn’t an accurate historical account, but a neo-classical, orientalist impression of the uprising.

In contrast to most war paintings which serve commemorative purposes, Goya’s portrait of war is a more blunt, contemporary take on war. The work illustrates the martyrdom that occurred in 1808 when 21,000 Spanish troops attempted to protect the city of Medina del Rio Seco from Napoleon’s invasion.

This intense painting depicts the 1770 fleet battle at Chesma in which the Ottomans were pitted against Russia. This naval battle, which preceded the Greek War of Independence, ended with a decisive Russian victory, leading to lengthy Russian control of the Aegean Sea and minority uprisings in the Ottoman Empire.

Leutze’s picture has come to symbolize American patriotism and triumph. It illustrates the first stages of George Washington’s successful, but challenging, attack on the Hessian forces in Trenton, New Jersey in the brutally icy winter of 1776. While Leutze’s portrait is idealized instead of grounded in historical accuracy, it still manages to capture the grandeur of Washington’s operation.

This may surprise you, but this depiction of the 1864 Battle of Cherbourg was Manet’s first-ever maritime painting. He painted this scene based solely on press descriptions of the naval attack. Fought during the American Civil War, this battle occurred between the USS Kearsarge and CSS Alabama off of the French coast, resulting in a Union victory and unfortunate outcome for the Confederate soldiers whose ship sunk.

This is the only one of Futurist pioneer Umberto Boccioni’s paintings whose sole focus is war. Illustrated is a horse being attacked by German bayonets, making this different from Boccioni’s other works in which horses exist as symbols of labor and the working class.

As a response to the “unspeakably difficult years” of World War I, Käthe Kollwitz began working on Krieg in 1919 after concluding that a woodcut was the appropriate means of expression. Her seven woodcuts make the sorrowful voices of those left behind in the war visible—mothers, widows, and children.

There were perhaps no two events more transformative or memorable than the two world wars, and in his massive triptych, Otto Dix puts the horrors of World War I in the spotlight. Dix’s war narrative is a dark one: the troops set out at sunrise, fall wounded and die in the trenches, and finally rest in a dugout. An x-radiography examination found that this triptych changed significantly between the first sketches and final painting process.

greatest battle paintings — Photo Credit: Salvador Dalí

Soft Construction, like Picasso’s famed Guernica, is a poignant impression of the Spanish Civil War. Francisco Franco’s nationalist uprising against the Spanish republic’s democracy incited this war, which lasted from 1936-39, turning Spain into a bloodbath. Dalí’s illustration is a “vast human body breaking out into monstrous excrescences of arms and legs tearing at one another in a delirium of autostrangulation.”

Viewed by many to be the definitive war painting, Guernica is Picasso’s distressing illustration of the terrors that occurred after the Nazi bombing of Guernica, Spain. Taking a close look at the painting, you can see a mother mourning her dead infant, several severed limbs scattered throughout, and a bull, a symbol of Spain’s strength through war.

Also known as The Thanksgiving Picture or I’ll Be Home for Christmas, this painting was inspired by President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s ‘Four Freedoms’ State of the Union Address given in 1941. At the time of the painting the United States was deeply involved in World War II, and FDR’s Four Freedoms sought to boost American patriotism. Rockwell’s portrait illustrates an idyllic all-American family in a post-war America.

war paintings — Photo Credit: Roy Lichtenstein

This idealized Pop art illustration of an air battle is translated from the 1962 DC War comic All American Men of War. Painted during the Vietnam War, this work is part of Lichtenstein’s successful attempt to elevate comic books into high culture status. While at first glance Pop art may seem uninspiring, the movement skillfully drew from and commented on everything happening in the world around it.

“I thought the Civil War would be a way that I could get closer to issues like racial violence, racism…” said artist Barnaby Furnas. Reminiscent of a Futurist work, Furnas’ painting is a massive, tactile battle scene illustrated through the clashing of U.S. and Confederate flags.

Photos courtesy of: The National Gallery; Wikimedia Commons; Tate; ArtNews

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