The Battle (Brack)

The Battle is a 1983 painting by Australian artist John Brack. The painting is part of a series of works by Brack symbolically depicting the 1815 Battle of Waterloo. These works represent the combatants as drawing implements - officers as pens and soldiers as pencils.

This work depicts the moment British troops seek to encircle French forces while the Prussians attack on the east flank. Composed between 1981 and 1983, The Battle is Brack's largest painting. The work was influenced by Brack's experience as an artillery officer in World War II where he observed the difficultly of rendering a battle in a single painting One could either paint a single event very close up, like an exploding shell blowing people into horrible mutilated fragments, or alternatively paint a very general view where the reality of the battle would be totally lost.

When [Brack] was in Europe and saw at first hand some of the famous battle paintings, he felt these observations were confirmed The National Gallery of Australia notes Brack saw a battle as "a metaphor for general conflict in human life, our power relations, organisational structures, oppression, futility and the teetering relationship between balance and instability."