Harding, George Matthews - Verdun Offensive, American Troops Following Barrage - ca. 1918 - T-Shirt

This charcoal drawing by George Matthews Harding shows American infantry in steel helmets surging forward with fixed bayonets over a shell-torn trench, pressing into drifting smoke.

Visual Elements & Composition

The palette is held to charcoal grey, pale grey and dark brown-black, with the off-white paper left open in the upper centre where the smoke glows brightest. Soldiers crowd the foreground lip of the trench, rifles thrust forward, while crouched and advancing figures fill the haze behind them. A sprawl of bodies anchors the lower left, and splintered fence posts, barbed wire and small shell bursts stand in the middle distance. The trench cuts a diagonal across the sheet, and the tilted, churning ground drives the eye into the smoke.

Meaning & Symbolism

The title names the moment of a creeping artillery barrage, when infantry advance directly behind their own shellfire to reach the enemy trench before defenders can recover. Harding records that momentum through a dense mass of men rather than a single hero, so the drawing reads as a collective, physical assault. The work is set in the Verdun Offensive of 1918 and belongs to the wartime charcoal studies in which he recorded the American army's fighting in France.

Printed on This Tee

Charcoal studies were built to be read up close, and this crowded scene rewards a close look: the soldiers' helmets, bayonets and smoke sit at chest height, where the eye lands first. The drawing's tonal range runs from deep black to soft paper grey, so the image carries the same weight of shadow and light it had on the original sheet.