Soldier's Head II

Discussing Frink's changing attitude towards violence and the military, Sarah Kent (A Bestiary for our time, the sculpture of Elisabeth Frink, reproduced in B. Roberston, op. cit., p. 59) comments on the Soldiers Head series, 'Several thick-set and brutish heads present the faces of our contemporaries. Their heavy jaws, cruel mouths, broken noses and cauliflower ears make it plain that these men are not heroes and that, unlike their idealized classical counterparts, nobility, honour and courage are foreign to their natures. They are merely tools, their helmets merging with their skulls to imply total identification with their roles. Low foreheads, flattened brow ridges, piggy eyes or empty sockets convey the numbness of shell-shock or brain damage. Their punch-drunk, almost catatonic stares suggest they have been used as cannon fodder and exposed to the full force of enemy aggression.

Their distorted features have no antecedents nor any blood relatives in contemporary sculpture. Frink's uniquely vicious breed offers a fresh perspective on heroes that populate our culture, demonstrating beyond doubt that the heroic fighter may just be seen as a thug or mercenary, depending on your viewpoint, and the decisive leader as an authoritarian bully. The qualities admired by one group may be those most despised by another - the 'baddies' don't always work for the other side'.