Two shows at the London National Gallery and the National Portrait are bringing the narrative, visual and emotional aspect of war right to the viewer.

RockDrill, by Epstein.

Two exhibitions currently on at the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery coincide unintentionally as Britain, Europe and the rest of the world commemorate the first centenary from World War I.

These two exhibitions are among the first in a series of major events, intended or implied, that should lead audiences worldwide to rethink how the politics of war, conflict and ideology broadly inspire art and its histories and how the two are inextricably linked. This promises to be a powerful response by the art and museum world to the threats of potential major world conflicts.

The National Gallery show concerns British connoisseurship and interest in German art. Strange Beauty: Masters of the German Renaissance is an exhibition for the traditional art connoisseur. It probes the reasons why the National Gallery has not given much attention to German art ever since its foundation in 1824. The exhibition title implies aesthetics as one of the reasons. Nineteenth-century British audiences and connoisseurs considered Raphael’s sinuous virgins and the likes of Sebastiano del Piombo’s Raising of Lazarus as works worthy of emulation.

By comparison, works by German artists such as Matthias Grünewald and Lucas Cranach would have looked strange, to say the least. Indeed, the only German artworks which then drew the gallery’s attention were those that looked stylistically Dutch even though painted by German artists.

German-styled works such as the early Renaissance altarpiece acquired by the National Gallery in 1854, created public uproar and ended up dismembered in numerous public galleries.

The exhibition showcases most of these fragments. Some of these were purposely recalled to London for this exhibition. The emphatic question mark, which the large poster at the beginning of the exhibition presents in neon-lighting format, questions whether such mishaps concern solely aesthetics. Is it just about public perceptions and taste or is it also about politics?

The exhibition narrative implies both and the last section invites viewers to post their response to such art. Responses vary and emotions can be clearly noted in some of the answers.

Key artworks by German artists which the National Gallery holds are prominently displayed. Dürer woodcut prints cannot go missing from any German art exhibition although most of the ones on display have been purposely loaned. Pride of place is reserved for Holbein the younger, recognised as the most English of German painters thanks to his tenure as official court painter to Henry VIII’s.

The experience should set visitors thinking about what the war really meant to its direct protagonists

Holbein’s The Ambassadors takes centre-stage and the young Christina of Denmark, Duchess of Milan, acquired by the National Gallery at the eleventh hour in 1909 instead of the American industrialist and art collector Henry Clay Frick, hangs as one of his best pieces. Cranach’s Cupid Complaining to Venus, once in Hitler’s private possession and bought by the gallery as late as 1963, is displayed towards the end.

By contrast, the National Portrait Gallery exhibition is a powerful storytelling exercise with stringent self-imposed parameters.

The Great War in Portraits is built around portraits which present the war narrative, as the title implies. The mood is set by Jacob Epstein’s Rockdrill – a sculpture piece purposely mutilated by the artist as the war unfolded.

This emotive response features again at the end of the exhibition with a selection of artists’ self-portraits. The carefully chosen works explain the diverse reaction of British and German artists; while Germans embrace expressionism, their British counterparts uphold tradition.

Max Beckhman’s Hell: The Way Home captures the mood in post-war Germany as the artist depicts himself confronting one of the many soldiers returning from the front. Orpen’s Self-Portrait in uniform stands in contrast as the artist pictures himself as a war hero recording developments on the war front.

The selection of works featured in between these two emotive nodes present human stories in portraits. The main protagonists are featured in the first section entitled Royalty and the Assassins.

The mood is set by a full-length portrait of King George IV hanging next to the portraits of Archduke Ferdinand and his assassin. By contrast, the footage of the funeral cortege of King Edward VII shows images of crowned heads that were soon to be at war against each other.

The following two sections broaden the narrative. Leaders and followers features the portraits of British generals, most of which are painted by Orpen, juxtaposed with images of their officers in oils, drawings and bronze.

Valiant and the Damned brings the audience face-to-face with the harsh realities of the war through a medley of carefully chosen monochromatic soldier portraits.

An unusual set of watercolours features portraits of casualties prior to facial reconstruction surgery. The chosen lynchpin for these sections is a rarely seen full-length portrait of Winston Churchill painted shortly after the battle of Gallipoli.

The Gallipoli landings had met with fierce Turkish resistance and heavy loss of life for which Churchill was called to account. The portrait on display represents a tormented man who is anything but the statesman leading Britain to victory in World War II.

The exhibition is well thought out and the works are strategically placed to complement the emotive tones set by Epstein’s sculpture and the artist’s self-portraits. Overlapping footage of the battle of the Somme is objectively presented, and loss of human life is consistently portrayed.

The experience is decidedly emotive and should set visitors thinking about what the war really meant to its direct protagonists.

Strange Beauty: Masters of the German Renaissance is on until next Sunday at the National Gallery, Sainsbury Exhibition centre. The Great War in Portraits runs until June 15 at the National Portrait Gallery.

Sandro Debono is Senior Curator at the National Museum of Fine Arts and Muża project leader.