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Alfred Théodore Joseph Bastien
Over the Top, Neuville-Vitasse, c. 1918
Oil on canvas
height: 140.5 cm (55.3 in); width: 229.6 cm (90.3 in)
Canadian War Museum
Bastien depicts an attack by the 22nd Battalion at Neuville-Vitasse, a German-fortified village in occupied France, in late August 1918. Major Georges Vanier, later the Governor General of Canada, maintained that he was the officer holding the pistol leading the assault.
One aspect of First World War trench warfare was the harrowing moment when soldiers left the trenches to go “over the top” and launch an attack.
Canadian soldier Harold Simpson described a soldier’s anxiety, “knowing exactly that at the end of a few minutes he will be called upon to face the most fiendish and effective instruments of destruction that modern science has been able to invent, from the fifteen inch shell to the Mills bomb, from liquid fire to gas.” More on this painting
Alfred Bastien (1873–1955)
Over the Top, Neuville-Vitasse, c. 1918
Watercolor paint on paper
height: 30.8 cm (12.1 in); width: 48.5 cm (19 in)
Canadian War Museum
Painted by Alfred Bastien in 1918. Bastien's watercolour study captures the heart-pounding experience of going "over the top." The soldiers scrambling over the trench parapet are Canadians. They are retaking the French village of Neuville-Vitasse from the Germans in August 1918.
Alfred Bastien (1873–1955)
A Sniper in the Cemetery, Neuville-Vitasse, c. 1918
Watercolor on paper
height: 35.2 cm (13.8 in); width: 50.5 cm (19.8 in)
Canadian War Museum
Alfred Bastien (1873–1955)
CANADIAN OFFICER KILLED, c. 1918
Watercolor on paper
Height 60.9 cm, Width 86.3 cm
Canadian War Museum
Alfred Théodore Joseph Bastien (16 September 1873, in Ixelles – 7 June 1955, in Uccle) was a Belgian artist, academic, and soldier.
He attended the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Ghent, where he studied with Jean Delvin. He then enrolled in the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, where he studied with Jean-François Portaels. He won the Prix Godecharle there in 1897.
He was in Paris when hostilities broke out in what would become the First World War.
Bastien served in the Belgian Army from 1915. Designated an official artist in 1916, he was placed at the disposal of the Canadian War Records Office in October 1917 and assigned to paint for the Canadian War Memorials Fund. Most of his time was spent with the French-speaking 22nd Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force, one result of which was Over the Top, Neuville-Vitasse. Neuville-Vitasse, located just south of Arras, was the site of heavy fighting in 1918.
He traveled to Paris, were he studied the paintings of Courbet and Delacroix. He was also influenced by the Impressionists. Like the Impressionists, he focuses on the affects of light and developed a discrete luminism that characterizes his portraits and landscapes. Bastien taught at the Brussels Academy where he became Director in 1928. More on Alfred Théodore Joseph Bastien
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