Oscar-winning actor Eddie Redmayne explores war art and how conflict's compelling stimulus to the imagination has created some of our richest and most powerful artistic inspiration. He takes an intensely emotional journey, visiting artists' studios, museums and travelling to battlefield locations to discover how artists have shone a powerful light into the abyss of warfare, leaving a unique legacy.
 
Redmayne, who studied History of Art at Cambridge University, meets contemporary war artists, soldiers and historians and travels to Flanders where he comes face to face with reminders of the fallen. The First World War had more serving artists than any other war in history. Redmayne explores the iconic canvasses of the Great War - Paul Nash, Stanley Spencer, John Singer Sargent and Henry Tonks, as well as the modernists C.R.W. Nevinson and David Bomberg, whose controversial art responded to the weaponry of the new machine world in revolutionary new forms, changing the artistic landscape forever. Redmayne travels behind the scenes to see war art hidden away from public view - some censored, some never seen on film before.

The challenge for artists of depicting war continues today. Redmayne meets contemporary war artists to see how this art form is as vital now as it ever was, including George Butler(Syria) and Graeme Lothian (Afghanistan), reportage artist Julia Midgley and official war artist Peter Howson (Bosnia), whose work was censored.