Bayonet

Bayonet

Bayonet

 

16 x 48 inches, oil on canvas 2007

 

This attaches to the barrel of the Steyr assault rifle. A vicious looking thing really. I asked a soldier why it had a hole in the blade. He said it was used as a spanner on the rifle. I had read somewhere that the Geneva Convention banned bayonets with holes in them. The reason being that a piercing wound from a blade with holes leaves air pockets inside the wound. Very nasty apparently. I put this to the soldier and he said, “Well, war is cruel.”

em ipsum dolor sit amet.

All text and images © Blaise Smith 2009