"Fallen Soldier" Memorial Sculpture

This sculpture, “FALLEN SOLDIER”, depicts the exact moment a soldier is mortally wounded and is falling backwards and dropping his rifle to the ground. This sculpture was unveiled in March 2013 by the Royal Military College of Canada, and is dedicated to current and past Canadian soldiers. This statuette is special in that after Andre Gauthier was inspired as the image arose in his ‘mind’s eye’, he immediately started sculpting it in wax on a wire armature without posing a human model. The statuette turned out to be disturbing in a dramatic sense; viewers who have looked at this sculpture are inevitably troubled by it. The reason, Andre believes, is that soldiers know they are in a dangerous profession that does include the possibility of making the ultimate sacrifice, but they tend to convince themselves that it would happen to others and not to themselves.