The image is split into two sections: the top half features a surrealist wartime painting depicting a desolate, cratered battlefield under a turbulent sky, where shattered trees stand like charred poles, twisted metal litters the ground, and shafts of light cut diagonally across the scene, highlighting the devastation. The bottom half contains two side-by-side photographs of a barren, dark landscape with a winding, vividly orange-red river cutting through it; the stark color of the water contrasts sharply with the muted earth tones and hazy, lifeless background, evoking a sense of toxicity or contamination.

Paul Nash, The Menin Road (1919) + Edward Burtynsky, Nickel Tailings #34-35 (1996)

Environmental destruction in WWI and now

#SideBySide #Art #PaulNash #MeninRoad #Burtynsky