Gott Mit Uns finally painted

I was grateful for the opportunity to get to paint this after doing a digital version and a marker version. I'm not sure if I would have got round to this if it hadn't been commissioned (thanks Julie and Henry!) It's always good to see paintings from a distance as it were when they're on screen. I've not added colour to the gold and silver leaf as I have before as I didn't want it to compete with the colourful background. The border lettering is in German again and is another phrase from Ephesians 6 which talks about taking the helmet of salvation, the sword of the Spirit which is the word of God.
The piece represents the idea that all sides in the Great War and other conflicts invoke the same god to ask for protection and victory over the other side. The Maxim guns are there to symbolise the craziness of the situation where the Germans, Russians, British and Americans were all killing each other with different versions of the same gun; the U.S Maxim developed by Hiram Maxim in the late 19th/early 20th century. We were all killing each other with the same weapons in a conflict justified and sanctioned by the same deity.

Gott Mit Uns
Acrylic, gold and silver leaf on canvas board