page_title: Ludwig Mactarian
section_title: World War II
hierarchical_section_title: Ludwig Mactarian / World War II
caption_attribution_description: English: Painting: Garigliano River Bridge on Highway No. 7 Italy, 1944, by Ludwig Mactarian
context_page_description: Ludwig Mactarian was an American painter, muralist, and illustrator.
context_section_description: Early in 1941, with the Second World War erupting in Europe and Asia, Mactarian joined the United States Army. During training at Fort Dix, New Jersey, he was exposed to scarlet fever and placed in an isolation camp. While in quarantine he learned of a $12,000 prize for a contest to paint a 12-by-50-foot mural in the new War Department Building in Washington, D.C.; company officers, impressed with his sketches, provided him with materials and a private workroom in the Men’s Service Club. Mactarian didn't win the competition, but his work caught the attention of the War Art Advisory Committee, and he was assigned duty as a war artist. He served with the 337th Engineer General Services Regiment, part of the US Fifth Army, in the Italian Campaign, reaching the rank of TEC3 (Sergeant).
  A series of paintings made in Italy in 1944/45 attracted considerable attention. Unlike many war artists, who depicted what they saw in a plain, illustrative style, Mactarian applied a Contemporary Realist approach to his paintings and drawings which at times bordered on Surrealism as they portrayed both the large-scale physical destruction of war and, particular to the Engineers, the striking incongruity of large geometric structures (such as pre-fabricated Bailey bridges, concrete bunkers, or gas pipelines) imposed on Italy's ancient landscapes.
caption: Garigliano River Bridge on Highway No. 7, 1944, Ludwig Mactarian
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