NEW MEETS OLD

The new incarnations of warfare ushered in during World War I—primitive tanks, frightening poison gases, and, above all, terrifying aerial bombardment and combat—demanded new approaches from artists who wanted to depict the increasing mechanized realities of war. The traditional conventions of depicting battles and other military engagements no longer sufficed.

French artist Maurice Busset (1879–1936) turned to an age-old medium—wood-block prints—to portray the 1918 German air raids on Paris in a portfolio he titled Paris Bombardé (Paris Bombarded).

The bombardment of Paris was part of Germany’s Spring Offensive (also known as the Ludendorff Offensive)—a massive attack on the Western Front that brought German forces within 75 miles of Paris. The Germans had bombed Paris before, in 1915 and 1916. But the attacks of 1918 were on a larger, more lethal scale. Beginning