Recruit's Progress: Medical Inspection

The new recruit, all unease and squirming, attempts to talk his way out of the inspection. The painting, the first of a series of four, shows how individual uncertainties were pushed to the limits in the face of public need and was a reflection of Weight's own experiences. Its humour made the imagery acceptable to the War Artists Advisory Committee: an earlier painting of a London trolley bus attacked in broad daylight by German fighter planes had been rejected since it was thought it might lower public morale.