Women at war: cinema and iconography of the mater dolorosa in the First World War

My contribution analyses the portrayal of the mater dolorosa through the diverse range of images widely disseminated across European countries during the course of the WWI and in the postwar period. I will analyse the range of subjects portrayed as the mater dolorosa: not only those mothers who had lost their sons at the front, but also mothers waving off their leaving sons, women refugees and nurses.

My objective is to demonstrate how this widespread use of the mater dolorosa figure, pivoting on the ideas of maternity and the spirit of sacrifice, contributed to the construction of an image of women counteracting the novel elements introduced by the war, otherwise destined to be at odds with this image.

Sources:

- Postcards and propaganda posters made by artists whose work extended beyond their national scope, such as Louis Raemaeckers and the Italian Tito Corbella, whose postcards were published in England and spread throughout many countries.

- Films whose leading characters were mothers who lost children in war, such as Merès Françaises (1917) a French government propaganda film acted by Sarah Bernhardt and distributed in many countries; and the Italian Guglielmo Oberdan. Il martire di Trieste [the martyr of Trieste] directed by Emilio Ghione in 1915; but I will also look at other female roles which can be linked to the idea of the mater dolorosa, for example: Nurse and Martyr, directed in 1915 by the English Percy Moran and the Australian film  The Martydom of Nurse Cavell (1916).