National Gallery Of Australia | Audio Tour | George.w.lambert Retrospective

Recumbent figure of a soldier is a starkly simple, natural image of a typical Australian digger. Lambert portrayed this soldier with a bullet hole in his left breast, his right arm reaching towards this wound as if to still the pain, and through his frowning brow capturing the soldier’s last spasm. Particular attention is given to the accuracy of the uniform: there is caked mud on the puttees and the soles of the boots are shown as being slightly worn. In this sculpture, Lambert commented on the human condition, creating a peaceful vision of death by showing the soldier looking ‘through closed eye lids at something he can no more understand than you & I can understand’(ML MSS 97/3, p.105). On viewing the plaster the Sydney Morning Herald ’s critic was struck by the natural expression on the soldier’s face and observed on 29 June 1929 that the figure had a ‘smile of peace’ and read it as ‘satisfaction at a duty nobly done’. The soldier’s calm appearance led the Sydney Morning Herald ’s commentator to remark o