LAST week as I was attending a meeting of the ACT Legislative Assembly’s art acquisitions committee, I turned a corner near the Speaker’s hospitality room and was astonished to find myself face to face with Will Longstaff’s brilliant painting “Villers-Bretonneux, ruins of the church.”

On loan from the Australian War Memorial, the 1918-19 oil on canvas impression of the ruined church of Villers-Bretonneux is powerfully symbolic of the highest ideals of Western culture and history, devastated by modern warfare.

Naturally enough, the Speaker, Vicki Dunne, has extended her thanks to the Australian War Memorial and its director, Dr Brendan Nelson, for the loan, which marks the beginning of commemorations of The Great War.

Sadly, World War I compassion fatigue is already setting in around the Canberra arts scene as just about every organisation, large or small, jumps in with a WWI show, but the exhibition of this evocative painting is on quite a different level.

Longstaff is best known for “Menin Gate at midnight,” which he painted after attending the unveiling ceremony of the Menin Gate memorial at the Belgian town of Ypres on July 24, 1927.

And Villers-Bretonneux? Over 3,700 Australian casualties resulted from the allies’ attempts to defend the town against German troops in April 1918, creating a powerful bond between it and the people of Australia.

Longstaff enlisted with the 1st Australian Remount Unit in October 1915 and served with the ANZAC Mounted Division and the Desert Column in the Middle East, recording his life there in His paintings. He then served in France before being invalided to England in October 1917. In 1918 He was trained in camouflage work in London and was appointed an official war artist. Later officer in charge of camouflage for the Australian 2nd Division in France, where he saw out the end of the war, he painted many subjects, including landscapes, buildings, battles, and allegorical scenes.