The Hangman’s Tree

The “large” of the title refers not to the size of the sheets but to the number of prints in the series. (Callot left an earlier series on the same topic unfinished, which is now known as the Small Miseries of War, containing only six sheets.) In the series, Callot focuses on the internal relations of the army and their treatment of civilians. From the recruitment of mercenary soldiers in the first plate to the granting of awards in the last, Callot bears witness to various kinds of pillage, destruction, and torture. The verse captions beneath each scene underscore the notion of just war: soldiers who commit atrocities receive commensurate punishment.

Although Callot has not depicted a specific army or war, it is difficult not to see the series in light of the protracted conflict between Lorraine and France, for which Callot’s home town of Nancy was long under siege. The message seems to be that although war is regrettable, it is unavoidable. In the eleventh print in the series, The Hangman's Tree, a wide yoked tree bears dozens of hanged men, “bad fruit,” as the verse describes then. Another doomed soldier is being hauled up a ladder soon to join dangling bodies, while priests dole out last rites to the condemned who wait below.