Anthony Bell's video rendition of his painting "The Fury"

As I stood before Anthony Bell's painting "The Fury," I was immediately struck by the swirling chaos of fiery orange and reds and black forms. The blurred black brush strokes seemed to slash the canvas like a sword on human flesh of the soldiers lost in ancient battles. The painting, a masterful blend of fiery reds, oranges, and yellow hues, somber blacks, with a recurring Fleur de Lis motif - a nod to regiments that fought for King and Country. "The Fury" captures the relentless march of war through the ages. Bell's work is a poignant commentary on humanity's choice between war and peace— a choice that has all too often favoured the former.

Bell's painting "The Fury" is inspired by the grim history of human conflict over the last two millennia, a period stained with the blood of countless on grassy battlefields. Not content with a physical representation of "The Fury" Bell wrote a poem called the "Grass Speaks" The grass, a silent witness to centuries of strife and conflict, tells the story of human hubris and the tragic waste of life and is the inspiration behind Bell's digital interpretation of his painting "The Fury".

As I watched the video rendition of "The Fury," where the grass itself appears to speak. As the video plays, the grass has grown over the battlefields covering the dead, whispering tales of ancient Rome and Greece, where the ambitions of men like Caesar and Alexander the Great led to rivers of blood. The grass covers the ground where the Ottoman Empire clashed with its foes, where the soil of Waterloo drank the lifeblood of thousands, and where the Norman Conquest of 1066 forever changed the English landscape.

Bell's painting and the digital video rendition both draw our attention to these passionate moments of intense human conflict. They remind us of the Battle of Bannockburn, where Scottish pride fought for freedom, and the English Civil War, which tore a nation apart. The First Crusade's holy fervour and the Hundred Years' War's relentless slog are etched into the canvas and echoed by the grass. The War of the Spanish Succession and the Wars of the Roses further illustrate the unending cycle of power struggles and human suffering.

"The Fury" by abstract artist Anthony Bell, Almeria, Spain 2021

In "The Fury," Bell does not just depict battles; he portrays the futility of war and the waste of human potential. The grass in the video, ever-present and ever-blowing in the wind, symbolises the continuity of life despite the destruction wrought by man. It is a stark reminder that while empires fall and soldiers die, nature endures, indifferent to the hubris of those who seek to dominate the world.

Standing before "The Fury," I felt a profound sense of sorrow and reflection, and it reminded me of my grandmother's loss of all seven of her brothers in WW1. The painting is a powerful indictment of mankind's failure to learn from history. It is a visual representation of the poem's message—that war dominates our past, not because it is inevitable, but because humanity repeatedly chooses it over peace.

Anthony Bell's "The Fury" and its digital counterpart are calls to remember the lessons of history. They challenge us to recognise the futility of war and to strive for a future where peace is not just a fleeting possibility but a lasting reality. As the grass grows over the scars of old battlefields around the world, may it inspire us to nurture peace in our hearts and in our world, and endeavour to quell the current conflicts that continue to rage.

Gav O'Brien

Director, Verse Media

"Youth is the first victim of war; the first fruit of peace. It takes 20 years or more of peace to make a man; it takes only 20 seconds of war to destroy him."

Baudouin of Belgium