The Beautiful Mushroom Cloud

As I perused the footnotes of an article I recently wrote about,”The Mushroom Cloud as Kitsch” by A. Constantita Titus, I found a gem: a hyperlink to this site, where the Navy Historical Center keeps a collection of paintings inspired by Operation Crossroads. This early event in the history of nuclear test bombing involved the detonation of two bombs, called ABLE and BAKER, at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands.

According to the Navy site, Operation Crossroads was perhaps most groundbreaking in its media presence:

In contrast to all later atmospheric nuclear tests, a large media contingent was present for the two Crossroads detonations. They were allowed to cover the test atomic bomb explosions “with sufficient thoroughness to satisfy the public as to the fairness and general results of the experiment.”

Operation Crossroads seems to have been a “testing ground” for more than just science. In an era now post-Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the U.S. government proceeded gingerly, using media coverage to gauge the public’s attitudes in the newly dawned “nuclear age.” Though there were undoubtedly many effects of media coverage of Operation Crossroads in the journalistic/literary sphere, the Naval Historical Center website demonstrates its visual impact with a series of sanctioned paintings by artists including “Gunnery Sergeant Grant Powers, official combat artist” (107). That the U.S. Government had an “official combat artist” to mediate or influence public interpretation of nuclear technology is fascinating, especially when we start to look at the painting collection:

This painting by Charles Bittinger, called “Start of Able Bomb,” demonstrates a few ideas I have encountered in secondary literature about the mushroom cloud. Here, the cloud is a harmonious part of a beautiful tropical setting, and stripped of any dangerous or destructive connotations. It is also stylized into its now-recognizable form, frozen in time.

After the break, I’ll share a few of the other paintings from the collection that really interested me:

This and the next painting, both by Bittinger, demonstrate the stylized beauty of the mushroom cloud.  The above is called “Untitled (Bomb Blast)” and the below is called “Atomic Bomb Explosion, Sub-Surface Blast.” The color palate is peaceful and serene, and the movement of the photo, captured by the impressionist brushstrokes

The above is a painting by Grant Powers, called “How We Looked to the Atom Bomb.” It lends a goofy cartoon quality to those observing the bomb blasts at Operation Crossroads, especially the man in the Hawaiian shirt, making it seem like a tourist attraction instead of a momentous event. Instead of dispassionate scientific inquiry or apocalyptic fear, the viewers are giddy with excitement. Some even look like they have witnessed something they haven’t, guilty, perhaps, of their naughty pleasure in something ostensibly so terrible. There is even a man looking away and one on a phone, showing that life goes on after the bomb.

This final painting is my favorite. Again by Grant Powers, it is titled “Through Protective Goggles on the USS Appalachian.” Not only is the mushroom cloud simplified and beautified in its quintessential form, but the painting frame is delimited by ‘protective goggles.’ Unlike the previous painting, in which goggles make the cartoon-ish men look even more silly, further reducing any apocalyptic weight, the goggle form in this picture makes the viewer feel ‘protected’ from the cloud. The orange-ish color palate, unlike the soothing blues in the earlier photos I commented on, makes the cloud feel menacing and fiery. I hesitate to say that the warm colors remind us that the cloud resulted from a lethal bomb explosion: we are, after all, transfixed by a stylized cloud and are at a safe distance from any radioactive or explosive results. This painting seems to be the most honest portrayal of the mushroom cloud from this collection, as it demonstrates the mushroom cloud in all its simplicity and paradoxical inconsistencies.

I am perhaps most impressed by this painting collection because it is hosted on a website with a .mil domain. These paintings, literally disseminated by the U.S. government, seem to have either directly or indirectly fueled the development of the mushroom cloud as a familiar element of American kitsch. In detonating two atomic bombs at Operation Crossroads, the government effected an explosion in both the military and cultural senses.