August 11, 2016

Ohrn Image — Public Art

Soldiers’ commemoration.  Waterfront Station, foot of Granville St.
“The Angel of Victory has been carrying a dead soldier heavenward since 1921, when the Canadian Pacific Railway commissioned Montreal sculptor Coeur de Lion McCarthy to commemorate the 1,115 CPR workers killed during the First World War.
Despite its name, there is nothing heroic or uplifting in the image of the angel carrying the soldier’s limp body. The soldier is dead, a young life snuffed out just as it’s beginning, and the angel gazes at him with sadness. It’s a subtle anti-war statement, a lament wrought by the appalling loss of human life in the Great War.” (Thanks to Ian Lindsay, Vancouver Sun, 2009).
Unknown.Soldier

The inscription reads:

To commemorate those in the service of the Canadian Pacific Railway Company who, at the call of King and country, left all that was dear to them, endured hardship, faced danger, and finally passed out of sight of men by the path of duty and self sacrifice, giving up their own lives that others might live in freedom.

Let those who come after see to it that their names be not forgotten.

1914-1918     1939 – 1945

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Comments

  1. I’ve always found this to be a rather moving statue and have found myself pausing in reflection from time to time when I pass it.

  2. I really hate how the restaurant has been allowed to encroach upon this statue. It feels very disrespectful to me.

  3. In 1913, Shackleton placed an ad looking for men to go to the South Pole:
    MEN WANTED for Hazardous Journey. Small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful. Honor and recognition in case of success.
    He hoped for 50-75 responses. He got 5,000.
    These were not men responding to an altruistic call from king and country. They were looking for adventure.
    General Smedley called war a racket. There are a lot of rackets – this one kills those who don’t want to play the game – don’t want to be pawns of the rich; of the corporatocracy; of the military industrial complex.
    What is the greatest atrocity perpetrated by warmongers? Is it the atomic bombing of Japan? The fire bombing of Dresden? The blitzkrieg on London? The relentless bombing of Vietnam? The list is endless.
    Muhammed Ali was a hero. He stood up to the bullshit. He refused to go to a country he’d never heard of to fight people who had done him no harm.
    For every war statue and red poppy, there should be five statues and five white poppies commemorating the innocent lives taken by energetic young men at the bidding of angry rich old men.
    If king and country came to me demanding to send my son to war, I’d tell them to send their own spawn.

  4. That’s a magnificent photograph, Ken. I walk past this sculpture at least five times a month but have not seen it captured in the architectural context like this.
    I am glad you also captured the commercial aspect too. Yes, it’s an intrusion, but it’s also perfectly indicative of our blind acceptance of the cheapening of place with poorly conceived retail. The Station is a private building despite its use as a transit hub. Perhaps that should change before it’s carved up or stomped on by a cinched up glass tower and any future public use is equally cinched, like an over-tight corset that asphyxiates the public good right out of it.

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