“AN HOMMAGE” – Liberty Beacon
Kansas City – Missouri – USA
National WWI Museum and Memorial
September 2026
CONCEPT
The work refers to the four human values embodied by the WWI Museum and Memorial, erected in memory of the combatants of the Great War. It is not a historical fresco recounting battles, but a conceptual tetralogy portraying the values that govern the bravery and sense of duty of the combatants, whose memory remains, 100 years later, a lesson in patriotism, courage and sacrifice, a lesson in honor.
The monument is topped by 4 statues embodying these values. Through its shape of a sword pointed at the sky, it symbolically evokes the faith and struggle of men of all times and all peoples. The work is an allegory of these fundamental principles. It draws on the architecture to offer a reading that combines the vertical and the horizontal as concepts of heaven and earth, life and death, the divine and the human, in a metaphorical representation conveyed through a colorful, vibrant narrative treatment.
We will thus see the 4 guardians in turn dominate the battlefield and then descend to it, wielding their swords in postures of combat or protection, each dressed in garments of a symbolic color enhanced with gold. The colors follow one another from celestial blue to the gold of glory: the blue of patriotism, the sky and faith; the green of courage, the uniform and hope; the red of sacrifice, blood and posterity; the gold and silver of honor, medals and recognition.
The guardians preside over the composition of epic tableaux celebrating self-giving, the founding component of victory in the patriotic process that engenders courage, in which heroism is embodied and from which sacrifice is born, all gathered for honor: that of one’s country, through the gift of one’s life for the homeland.
ACTION of “An Hommage”
The column, like a sword blade, successively receives the stone statues of the guardians of the values perched at its summit. The statues come to life and take on color, gliding gently toward the ground while brandishing their attributes, as the events of History unfold beneath their feet on the frieze wall: a field of action, a battlefield, a field of confrontation between the values of Men. Groups of characters from the frieze join the composition. The celestial guardians then join, one by one, the earth of the battle of men. Their final fusion symbolizes the victory of the values they represent. The angel of peace escorts them back to the Heavens.
Xavier de Richemont – 2026 – An Hommage.
© Xavier de Richemont 2026