Harold H. Piffard (1867–1939) was a British artist and illustrator. This illustration by Piffard, entitled
The Thin Red Line, appeared in the 1917 edition of the magazine
Canada in Khaki. It depicts a narrow belt of
poppies separating a war-ravaged scene from a stretch of peaceful countryside. The scarlet poppy has come to be seen as
a symbol of remembrance.
Macaulay, quoting an account of a 1693 battle in Flanders, wrote that "the ground was strewn with skulls and bones of horses and men, and with fragments of hats, shoes, saddles, and holsters. The next summer the soil, fertilised by 20,000 corpses, broke forth into millions of scarlet poppies." Similarly, the opening verse of the World War I poem "
In Flanders Fields" refers to poppies springing up among the graves of war victims in Belgium.
Painting credit: Harold H. Piffard; restored by Adam Cuerden