On Monday, June 29, 2026, a specialized session on “The Art of War” was held, featuring a lecture by Majid Shah-Hosseini, President of the Iranian Academy of Arts. The event was organized by the Strategic Studies Management Group of the Academy’s Research and Artistic Department.

According to the Public Relations Office of the Academy of Arts, at the beginning of the session, Maryam Ansari, Head of the Monitoring and Evaluation of Cultural Policies Group, referred to recent events and stated: This year, we all experienced a more epic perception of the month of Muharram. We witnessed that mourning for Imam Hussein (peace be upon him) represents the revival of a logic rooted in resistance and steadfastness. It is the continuation of a tradition that embodies the spirit of heroism and elevated emotions, manifested in the presence and solidarity of people in the streets. During this period, we observed a meaningful connection between religious and ritual practices and national, patriotic themes, especially in songs and poetry.

She continued: The unique conception of martyrdom—based on Imam Khomeini’s statement that martyrdom is “the art of God’s men”—has clarified for us the relationship between art and responsibility. The message of the Leader of the Islamic Revolution on the occasion of Ferdowsi Day also clearly articulated this duty. In that message, he stated that the epic of presence, defense, and victory places a great responsibility on cultural figures, writers, and artists to rise like Ferdowsi and align the mission of artists with the mission of the people. They are called to merge thought, pen, and language with art and to record the great uprising of the nation in history.

Ansari added: Given the necessity of addressing how such narratives are formed and the responsibility of art in confronting war—and considering the expansion of the battlefield from military domains into the realms of perception and narration—the Strategic Studies Group has designed a series of sessions titled “Art in Times of War.” The aim is to examine whether the role of art is merely to document events retrospectively, or whether, as seen in the history of contemporary art and media, it can also take a proactive role in shaping beliefs and meanings.

The Paradox of Western Civilization: Anti-War Beliefs versus a War-Driven Worldly Life

Continuing his remarks, Majid Shah-Hosseini, President of the Iranian Academy of Arts, stated: From a philosophical perspective, war is the harshest, most bitter, yet also the most self-evident and natural phenomenon in human societies. Some philosophers define history as the interval between wars and consider war the driving force behind historical formation. For example, Aristotle viewed the desire for wealth and a better life as the origin of war. Socrates, from a more conceptual standpoint, identified the attempt to impose one’s ideas on others as the cause of war. Hobbes proposed the idea that “man is a wolf to man,” while Nietzsche—regarded as the most pro-war philosopher of the nineteenth century—praised war and considered human beings as “overmen” justified in fighting. The perceived necessity of war in Western culture is also reflected in Machiavelli’s The Prince.

From a religious standpoint, the major spiritual traditions of both the West and the East—including Christianity, Buddhism, and Hinduism—are largely oriented toward beauty and tend to avoid war. Nevertheless, the foundations of the two major world wars of the twentieth century emerged among followers of Christianity and Buddhism. One of the striking paradoxes of Western civilization lies here: despite its internal, faith-based anti-war principles, the worldly life of Western society shows a tendency toward war. Where does this contradiction originate? Why has war become an inseparable component of modern societies?

An interesting point is that Muslims—often accused of violence from a Western perspective—were, due to the existence of structured rules and verses on jihad (which constitute a significant portion of their religious texts), largely removed from wars governed by such frameworks, or at least were not the initiators of twentieth-century global conflicts. It appears that the absence of clear legal or moral constraints within secular Western culture—where decisions about war are concentrated in the hands of politicians and war-makers—is an issue worthy of reflection.

The Continuation of the Chivalric Ethos of “How to Fight” in Iranian Thought

The permanent member of the Academy of Arts added: In our Eastern culture, from ancient Iran to the present day, the art of war is closely tied to mythological traditions and the chivalric ethics of how to fight and with what cultural mindset one enters war. The Shahnameh is filled with remarkable events and beliefs suggesting that an Iranian hero is not meant to win every battle at any cost. In Iranian culture, it seems that the outcome of war is secondary to the manner in which it is fought. In contrast, in ancient Greek thought, the “hero” is often a harsh figure who, by committing various immoral acts, focuses solely on achieving victory and is driven purely by the desire to win.

Referring to art in the modern sense (“art” as art), he categorized the artistic dimensions of war into three types: the art of war, post-war (or anti-war) art, and sacred defense art. He explained that the art of war serves war itself and presents it as a social necessity. Post-war or anti-war art addresses the bitterness, darkness, destruction, consequences, and losses of war and its aftermath. Sacred defense art, in clear distinction from the other two, is connected to the realm of the sacred.

This cinema researcher, while introducing several sources for further study, referred to works such as An Empire of Their Own by Neal Gabler, The Hollywood Economist by Edward Jay Epstein, and Five Came Back by Mark Harris. These works explore the history of classical Hollywood, its formation, the relationship between Americans and war, the reasons behind the integration of war into cinema, and the connection between five prominent American directors and World War II, including their voluntary participation on the front lines.

Shah-Hosseini also provided a detailed overview of the history of the French Revolution, including the Reign of Terror (the guillotine era), the Thermidorian Reaction (marked by fatigue with revolutionary radicalism), the Consulate period, and the transition from a republic back to an empire. He highlighted Napoleon Bonaparte as one of the most war-driven figures in modern history, noting his rapid military campaigns across Western and Eastern Europe, Russia, and Moscow. He then referred to Napoleon’s expedition to Egypt, accompanied by numerous archaeologists and artists tasked with studying the mythological and artistic heritage of ancient Egypt, describing this as one of the earliest examples of the close interconnection between art and war in the modern era.

The Art of War in the United States: From Epic Spirit to Imperialism

A member of the Academy’s Specialized Group on Revolutionary Art added: The Napoleonic wars transformed the history of 19th-century art and gave rise to numerous artistic works. For instance, much of War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy, Les Misérables by Victor Hugo, Désirée by Annemarie Selinko, and Sultana by Prince Michel of Greece narrate this period. Many film adaptations have also been based on these literary works. It is even said that Beethoven initially dedicated his Fifth Symphony to Napoleon.

From the early 19th century onward, the relationship between war-making and art became increasingly significant. During this same period, major conflicts also took place in the American continent. After declaring independence from Britain in 1776, the United States engaged in several wars with the empire, culminating in the occupation of Washington, D.C., in 1812, when British forces set fire to the White House. During this time, the art of war in the United States was rooted in ideals of independence, freedom, resistance to colonialism, and the creation of epic narratives. This atmosphere persisted until the presidency of James Monroe and his doctrine of isolationism. In the mid-19th century (1863–1865), the United States experienced the Civil War, which is reflected in the famous novel Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell.

However, by the end of the 19th century, particularly in 1898, the United States shifted toward overseas wars, beginning with the invasion of the Philippines, thereby transforming from a freedom-seeking nation into an imperial and colonial power. This trajectory continued with interventions in Haiti, Hawaii, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and elsewhere. Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter once noted that out of approximately 250 years of American history, only 16 years were free from war. During this period, writers such as Mark Twain voiced. Yet gradually, as government policies shifted, art followed suit. The art of war emerged through artists who believed that destiny had assigned such a mission to the exceptional American nation. Surviving works from this era include real images and paintings depicting executions and massacres of Filipinos by American soldiers, often presented with a sense of pride.

The President of the Academy continued: The 20th century and the world wars are of great importance in understanding the culture of war art and the relationship between art and war. Entering the 20th century, the modern Western individual had largely severed ties with the metaphysical realm, viewing faith and spirituality as attributes of a primitive past. Science was elevated to the status of religion, and in replacing prophets with scientists, there was an attempt to construct paradise on earth through positivist reason. Concepts such as the “death of God” and the “clockmaker God” emerged, suggesting that the order of the world had been entrusted to human reason.

The artistic expression corresponding to this worldview was naturalism, oriented toward science. For example, Émile Zola, in the preface to Thérèse Raquin, described his characters as biological entities driven by instincts, not moral virtues. This naturalistic approach also influenced late 19th-century French visual arts, exemplified by the Eiffel Tower as a fusion of art, industry, and science.

Such a modern human, however, suddenly confronted the devastating social phenomenon of World War I in the early 20th century. This event transformed the philosophical nature of Western modernity into a postmodern condition characterized by hybridity, multiplicity, and fragmentation, profoundly influencing subsequent artistic movements. As a result, many artistic trends—including Surrealism, Dadaism, Cosmopolitanism, Minimalism, Cubism, and movements broadly labeled as modern art but philosophically aligned with postmodernism—emerged in the period between the two world wars.

Shah-Hosseini, raising the question of how art framed this bitter and immense war and how it managed to persuade audiences to engage in it, stated: At the end of the Napoleonic wars, Romantic art was dominant. However, in the twentieth century, a new artistic perspective was required to represent this new kind of war. In this period, the most modern art form was cinema, which emerged around 1895 and was about 19 years old at the outbreak of World War I. At that time, the seventh art, as a showcase of all arts and like a soldier itself, put on a uniform and entered a war that had begun with horses, swords, carts, and carriages, but within three years turned into an industrial slaughterhouse with of the , airplanes, submarines, and chemical weapons.

The rapid spread of World War I—from its easternmost in Europe, Serbia, to its westernmost regions such as Germany and France—led artistic works of the time to address both the eastern and western fronts. For example, Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak reflects the events of the eastern front. The flames of this war also reached the Ottoman territories, the Gallipoli front, and most tragically, Iran. Despite the declaration of neutrality by the 14-year-old Ahmad Shah and the government of Mostowfi al-Mamalek, Iran, due to its strategic location and oil resources supplying the British navy, was occupied. The warring powers effectively declared that Iran should serve the interests of the British Empire. A BBC Persian documentary shows how Iran’s official declaration of neutrality was crumpled and discarded, with the narrator noting that Iran had already been divided between Russia and Britain in the 1908 Saint Petersburg agreement, rendering the 1914 declaration meaningless.

During this war, approximately 9 million people—roughly one-third to one-half of Iran’s population—died as a result of the Great Famine. These events deeply influenced Iranian artists. Poets such as Hassan Vahid Dastgerdi, Malek al-Sho‘ara Bahar, and Mirzadeh Eshqi documented these tragedies in their works. Visual artists also depicted these painful realities. For instance, a papier-mâché pen case preserved in the Malek Museum portrays scenes of bread shortages, hunger, emaciation, religious figures and groups assisting the poor, the spread of cholera, संघर्ष over a single piece of bread, people eating grass and animal carcasses, and widespread death.

He continued: One of the well-known forms of propaganda cinema, created to mobilize and persuade public opinion for the (delayed and interest-driven) entry of the United States into World War I, is the famous trilogy by D.W. Griffith. In The Birth of a Nation, Griffith explores the roots of American civilization; in Intolerance, he emphasizes the plight of oppressed nations; and in Hearts of the World, he personally goes to the front lines, placing his camera in the battlefield while wearing a military uniform.

Twenty years later, in preparation for World War II, the United States developed more sophisticated cultural strategies for different segments of society. Women were given a prominent role on the home front, particularly in weapons factories, and the figure of “Rosie the Riveter” was introduced as a symbol of strong and active women. Many of these women suffered gradual poisoning due to exposure to chemicals in weapons production. Hollywood also deployed actresses to entertain soldiers through musical and comedic performances. Major film stars such as Mary Pickford, Myrna Loy, Claudette Colbert, Shirley Temple, and Veronica Lake either appeared in uniform at the front or participated in war propaganda. Some, including Carole Lombard and Leslie Howard, died during wartime missions. The book Five Came Back recounts the experiences of five major American filmmakers—John Ford, William Wyler, Frank Capra, George Stevens, and John Huston—who voluntarily joined the military and contributed to war projects.

He further discussed the relationship between war art and different social groups—women, children, men, soldiers, and Hollywood figures—citing notable propaganda works such as Why We Fight? by Frank Capra, Casablanca by Michael Curtiz, and Everybody Comes to Rick’s Cafe by Murray Burnett and Joan Alison. He also mentioned Disney’s animated film Blitz Wolf, which, by equating the wolf character with Adolf Hitler, offered a biased explanation to children about the causes of war and the identity of the enemy. In other artistic domains, including poetry and music, well-known songs such as When Johnny Comes Marching Home and You’re a Grand Old Flag also served the war effort.

He added that during the centenary of World War I, as expected, there was renewed interest in reconstructing the memory of the war for contemporary audiences in Europe and the United States. Works were produced to help new generations understand how their ancestors lived, why they fought, and what horrors they experienced. Jean-François Delassus, in his 2008 documentary The Noise and the Fury, restored, colorized, and added sound to archival footage. This was followed by a wave of films and documentaries such as War Horse by Steven Spielberg, a new adaptation of All Quiet on the Western Front, and most notably They Shall Not Grow Old by Peter Jackson, which combines propaganda materials, early animations, documentary footage, and soldiers’ letters preserved in the British War Museum.

In conclusion, he stated that the rhetoric of the “art of war” has developed into a significant phenomenon in modern art history, using art as a tool to manage public opinion, shape decisions, and persuade audiences across all social groups. In the 21st century, he argued, societies justify warfare—often tied to imperial ambitions—through the logic of propaganda and the strategic use of art, explaining why wars must be fought and what consequences may follow if they are not.