Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori

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Figure 1 – Memorial to the men of Salem’s Immaculate Conception Parish who served in World War 1. (c) DE Wolf 2019.

The other day, while I was exploring my new city, Salem, I found the spectacular bronze relief of Figure 1. It is a monument to the boys of the Immaculate Conception Parish who served in “The World War.” That is back when there was only one such war and the world was filled with hope that it would be the last.

The memorial is gorgeous, and I was curious about two things: first who was the sculptor, second how well did the latest Adobe Photoshop tilt perspective tool work. I think that as the photograph testifies that the tool works very well. The sculptor was Raymond Averill Porter. He was born in 1883 and attended age Studied School of The Art Institute of Chicago Chicago, 1902-1904. He went on to become the Head of the department of modeling and sculpture at the Massachusetts School of Art. He is best known for his bronze statue of Senator Henry Cabot Lodge (1850 – 1924) in front of the Massachusetts State House.

The monument is a piece of beauty and peace. The setting is serene. Are the horrors of that war, after a century forgotten? My mind flashes to the immortal words of Wilfred Owen (1893 – 1918) who died a week before the guns went silent on the Western Front.

“If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.”