Some of the most impressive art is a by-product of war. Consider Art Spiegelman's MAUS, a brilliant study of Nazism, or the output of Hollywood from the same era.
But since Matthew Brady wielded his glass plate camera in the American Civil War, photography has been a singular medium to capture the depth, breadth, feeling, action, and consequences of war. Lately, pictures from Lebanon have struck me as ideal examples of this. Consider the following:
Each in turned stunned me when I first saw them and they still give me pause for reverence when I see them again. Truly awesome in their technical excellence, these photos also show craftsmanship beyond compare. More importantly, they illustrate what it means to be in a war, the subject being an art form itself. War is creativity applied to destruction, yet out of it we find creativity documenting and explaining the chaos. Thus we have a Mobius strip of conflict and harmony, forever separated but parallel in their creation.