Response By
Alan Shepard
L.A.C. Panton Grandeur Nigh Unto Dust, 1946
tempera on masonite Art Fund, 1951Response
Difficult to make sense of Panton’s painting. Dreamlike, it presents a landscape made of what? A forest of hair—or is it wheat, or marred earth? Maybe the painting expresses the bleak, almost colourless agony of a parent who has lost his son in the Second World War. Reminded me of that Great War poem by Wilfrid Owen, “Dulce et Decorum Est,” but its opposite. Owen gives us “the blood / come gargling.” Panton goes all surreal, with one naked tree in the centre, calling us to have hope in the midst of the nightmare.
Alan Shepard is the 11th President & Vice-Chancellor of Western University. He has held senior academic leadership roles at Concordia University, Ryerson University, the University of Guelph, Texas Christian University, and the University of Virginia. He holds a PhD in English from the University of Virginia. Beyond his university leadership role at Western, Alan is an advocate for arts and culture, and actively involved in the community.