Robert Arneson’s sculpture Minuteman shows the observer the brutality of war and its misgivings. The composition is comprised of fired clay and acrylic paint. The observer, upon viewing the piece, is brought up close to the horrendous atrocities of war. The figure is that of a hairless disfigured head lanced upon a charred cross. An obsidian-black blood with lurid, red roots flows under its deformed head. Horribly disfigured this figure gives the observer a frightful awakening to the unpleasentries of war.
The observer sees that at the base of the cross, carved into its vertical beam, a missile. This imagery corroborates that in the holiest of fights the lurking shadow of destruction is still a concern. Working up the cross we see black blood covering the charred cross. On the left beam of the cross a

This composition has many opinions on the act of war. The targeted head and missile cross create a striking metaphor of target and perpetrator. The lurid black blood with red roots depicts the dissention of the heart from life to death. The way in which Arneson uses the backside of the head as a message board exhibits that under the horrible visuals there are inherent facts related to war. Through the graffiti on the back of the figure’s head we have an editorial on the factualness of war. The cross itself is possibly used to depict a grave for a fallen soldier, not unlike those in Calvary National Cemetery in Washington D.C. The positioning of the head on the cross is a allusion to the way in which detainees in refugee camps during World War II where sometimes executed and placed on display as a warning to