The preparation and issuing of a book, journal, or piece of music for public sale.
Essay Title:
Should fine art be given more value than other types of communication?
What did I write about?:
The uses and value of using fine art and photography as mediums to document war
- The importance of art in documenting war
- Propaganda Art in war
- The differences between photography and art in the war
Initial Ideas:
- War packaging - everything unties as a parcel
- name tags used for children
- airborne leaflet propaganda
- ration books
"information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote a political cause or point of view"
If I went with the concept of propaganda, I could look at how the leaflets dropped changed peoples opinions and also the posters behind the propaganda, How the art affected peoples opinions and country moral
WEBSITES:
http://www.historyextra.com/propaganda
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/06/13/100-years-of-propaganda-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/
http://guity-novin.blogspot.co.uk/2010/05/chapter-29-propaganda-posters.html#Eleven
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/06/13/100-years-of-propaganda-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/
http://guity-novin.blogspot.co.uk/2010/05/chapter-29-propaganda-posters.html#Eleven
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War Shelter Guides
War Shelter booklets were distributed in the war to provide people with all the information they needed to know about the war and what to do in the situation of a raid or bombing.
Below shows a few few pages from the Edinburgh Raid Shelters booklet. The design of it is very simplistic and all about the information. The worn off white paper and tattered cover shows how much it would have been used. I could Incorporate this style into my final publication.
Propaganda In Art
Art was a major way to produce propaganda cheaply. The photo below shows women painting the posters to sway peoples opinions. Propaganda not only changed peoples views but united the country as everyone pulled together and felt they had a roll to play.
Below shows some propaganda work done by Dr. Seuss Propaganda. I found this quite interesting as he is an iconic children's novel writer. His drawings were simple black and white but really interesting and definitely got his point across.
War Ration Booklets and Other Information Books
Ration books were a large part of the war as less food was being imported. The thing that interested me from a design point of you was the layout and making of the ration booklet. Perhaps this is a design I could look into with a perfect bind/ saddle stitch.
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The thing I liked about this book was the simple make do and mend culture and layout. The illustration in the top right makes the page more interesting.
Airborne Propaganda Leaflets:
Airborne leaflet propaganda is a form of psychological warfare in which leaflets (flyers) are scattered in the air. Military forces have used aircraft to drop leaflets to attempt to alter the behaviour of combatants and civilians in enemy-controlled territory, sometimes in conjunction with air strikes. Humanitarian air missions, in cooperation with leaflet propaganda, can turn civilians against their leadership while preparing them for the arrival of enemy troops.
Functions -
There are six different functions of airborne leaflet propaganda that have been used over the past century:
- Threaten destruction
- Warn enemy combatants and civilians that their area will be targeted. This has the dual purpose of reducing collateral damage and encouraging enemy combatants and civilians (who may be engaged in wartime production) to abandon their duties, reducing the target's military effectiveness.
- Prompt the enemy to surrender
- Explain to prospective deserters how to surrender.
- Offer rewards
- Rewards could be offered to encourage individuals to provide assistance, or to encourage defection.
- Disseminate or counter disinformation
- Reduce enemy morale through propaganda.
- Neutralize enemy propaganda.
- Advise radio listeners about frequencies/times of propaganda broadcasts and methods for circumventing radio jamming.
- Facilitate communication
- Create a friendly atmosphere for the enemy by promoting ideologies such as freedom, capitalism, and "noble intentions".
- Provide humanitarian assistance
- Inform people where to find airdropped food, how to open and consume it, and when it comes.
First World War
Aerial leaflets were first used on a large scale during World War I by all parties. The British dropped packets of leaflets over German trenches containing postcards from prisoners of war detailing their humane conditions, surrender notices and general propaganda against the Kaiser and the German generals. By the end of the war MI7b had distributed almost 26 million leaflets.
The Germans began shooting the leaflet-dropping pilots, prompting the British to develop an alternative method of delivery. Mr. A. Fleming invented the unmanned leaflet balloon in 1917, and these were used extensively in the latter part of the War, with over 48,000 units produced. The hydrogen balloon would drift over no-man's land to land in the enemy trenches.
At least one in seven of these leaflets were not handed in by the soldiers to their superiors, despite severe penalties for that offence. Even General Hindenburg admitted that "Unsuspectingly, many thousands consumed the poison" and POWs admitted to being disillusioned by the propaganda leaflets that depicted the use of German troops as mere cannon fodder. In 1915, the British began airdropping a regular leaflet newspaper Le Courrier de l'Air for civilians in German-occupied France and Belgium.
Advantages of leafleting
- The printed words on the leaflets were more authoritative before the advances in technology.
- One leaflet has the potential to reach many civilians.
- Leaflets can be hidden and easily destroyed in case of emergency.
Disadvantages
- Due to illiteracy not all civilians are capable of reading the leaflets.
- In order to have accurate delivery, aircraft need to fly at low altitudes and low speeds making them easy targets for the enemy.
- Leaflets can be destroyed or altered by the enemy.
- Messages must cater to the cultural norm of society.
- Weather conditions can alter the message being delivered to civilians
Propaganda Posters - Germany WWII
After the first world war practically every government resorted to intense propaganda campaigns for capturing the hearts and the minds of the masses. In particular, the extreme right in the form of fascism and the extreme left in the form of communism found posters a potent tool in their propaganda campaigns. Here are two examples from Nazi Germany, and Soviet Russia.
Hitler’s fervent desire to attain propaganda supremacy among nations was a direct result of the German defeat in World War I and his belief that superior allied propaganda trumped Kaiser Wilhelm II’s meager output. Through intensive barrages of posters and other visual media, Britian and America effectively defamed the “Hun” in the eyes of the world, portraying the Kaiser’s military as callous blood-thirsty beasts. The German counterattack was tepid at best. “The Germans were sent into this mighty battle with not so much as a single slogan,” wrote Eugen Hadamovsky, the Nazi propaganda expert and Josef Goebbels’ deputy, in Propaganda and National Power (1933, reprinted by Arno Press in 1972). So when the Nazis came to power, Hitler commissioned a book titled Das Politische Plakat: Eine Psychologische Betrachtung by Erwin Schockel (Franz Eher Verlag, published in 1939), a psychological assesment of English, American, French, Russian and German political posters. It was a handbook for German propagandists and others. ...
Das Politische Plakat was one in a series of textbooks and manuals issued through the Reichspropagandaleitung, based in Munich (Reich Propaganda Office of the Nazi Party, a separate department from the more powerful Berlin-based Ministry of Propaganda and Enlightenment) for use by party members only. Schockel’s message was clear: powerful propagandistic graphics must be simple and memorable.
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| German: Yes! Leader, we follow you! |
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| German: Hitler, resembling Jesus. Extreme personality cultism surrounded Hitler thus resulting in the coining of the phrase the "Hitler Myth". |
Propaganda Posters - USA WWII
It is estimated that the U.S. produced more than 200,000 different posters during the second war, more than any other country. Many of the US war posters were designed by the artists who participated in various competitions to produce a design in support of the war. Many corporations produced posters that while supporting the war was also promoting their products. Many corporations were allowed to treat their war propaganda posters as business expenses.
Propaganda Artists
DIMITRI MOOR: RUSSIA, 1917–1921
Dimitri Moor (or Dmitry Stakhievich Orlov) changed the face of graphic design in Soviet Russia back in 1918. His work dominated both the Bolshevik Era (1917–1921) and the New Economic Policy (1921–1927). The main theme of Moor’s work is the stark contrast between the oppressive evil and the heroic allies. A lot of pressure was put on Russian workers to rise up against imperialism.
A lot of Moor’s artwork was restricted to black and red. Black was generally used for the main part of the poster, and all of the solid colors for the capitalists. Red was used for socialist elements such as flags and workers’ shirts.
This is a lesser known poster by the artist, appealing for help for those staving from the Russian famine in 1920. It features the single word “Pomogi,” meaning help. The drawing is of an old man who is just skin and bone. The last stalks of barley are barely visible in the background.
EL LISSITZKY: RUSSIA, 1920
El Lissitzky spent his whole career absorbed by the belief that the artist could be an agent for change and good, and his work in a lot of respects shows this. He himself was a huge agent of change in the artistic movements of the time. He was one of the fathers of suprematism, along with Kazimir Malevich; and along with many of his peers, he changed the look of typography, exhibition design, photo montage and book cover design. Most of the modern techniques we see today and that appear in film and modern Kenetic typography are the product of Lissitzky’s work.
One of his most famous pieces, shown below, really embodies Lissitzky’s work. It is so avant garde that even a lay person could recognize the style. The abstract geometric shapes and clear color pallet scream of modernist art, and yet the poster has a real message. It describes the Russian revolution that took place in 1917. The white circle represents the royalists from the old regime, and the red triangle represents the communists moving in and changing opinion. It has been described as a stylized battle plan for communist victory.
Then in 1921, El Lissitzky accepted a job as the Russian cultural ambassador to Germany. His work influenced a lot of the iconic designs of the Bauhaus and De Stijil movements. His last poster, seen below, was a return to propaganda, with a poster encouraging the Russian people to help Russia build more tanks to win the war against Nazi Germany.
HANS SCHWEITZER: GERMANY, 1930S
In Germany in the 1930s, propaganda was in full swing and being used by Hitler’s advisers to call the German people to arms and spread lies about the Jews. One of the most famous artists behind Nazi propaganda was Hans Schweitzer, known as “Mjolnir.” This poster by Hans Schweitzer shows the typical pro-Nazi theme of the German army’s strength, depicting an S.A. man standing next to a solider. The text reads, “The guarantee of German military strength!”
This next poster by Mjolnir, titled “Our Last Hope: Hitler” was used in the presidential elections of 1932, when Germany was suffering through its great depression. Nazi propagandists targeted the German people who were unemployed and living on the breadline, and they suggested Hitler as their way out, their savior.
The propaganda then used the scapegoat of the Jews, blaming them for all of Germany’s problems and the war. Many posters were entitled, “He is guilty for the war.” This was the key message of Hitler to start his campaign of terror and for the ethnic cleansing that ensued. Almost the entire campaign from beginning to end was driven by the artist Mjolnir. Just as the media molds public opinion today, Mjolnir most definitely molded the opinion of the German people through his designs. There is no doubts about the immorality and emotional deception of these designs; they are still worth mentioning because they were extremely powerful and effective at the time.
PABLO PICASSO: SPAIN, 1937
Picasso painted Guernica in response to the bombing of the town by Germany and Italy, which were following orders from Spanish Nationalist forces, on 26 April 1937. It must be said that it was commissioned to Picasso long before the bombing of the town und was supposed to be a classic painting first; after the bombings, Picasso changed his drawing to respond to the recent bombing. The giant mural shows the tragedy of war, using innocents civilians as the focal point. It became a huge symbol of anti-war, and upon completion it was exhibited worldwide to spread the message. The piece also educated other countries about the horror of the Spanish Civil War, which till then most people had never heard of.
NORMAN ROCKWELL: US, 1939
Norman Rockwell is probably one of the best known of the propoganda movement. He admitted that he was just a propaganda stooge for the Saturday Evening Post. The newspaper paid many artists and illustrators to whitewash American news with patriotism and propaganda for around 50 years.
His work has often been dismissed as idealistic or sentimental. His depiction of American life included young boys running away from a “No swimming” sign, and happy-go-lucky US citizens going about their business unaware of the crumbling world around them.
Rockwell’s famous Rosie the Riveter poster is shown below, representing the American women who worked in the munitions and war supplies factories during World War II. This was a call to arms for the women of America to become strong capable females and support the war effort.
J. Howard Miller’s “We Can Do It!,” commonly mistaken to depict Rosie the Riveter, conveyed the same message:
Rockwell was always unhappy with the politics of the Saturday Evening Post, so in his later years, he took up the controversial subject of racism in America. He became respected as a painter for these hard-hitting pieces of American culture, much more so than for his work for the Saturday Evening Post. The piece below is called “The Problem We All Live With.” It is not known whether this painting is based solely on the Ruby Bridges story, because it was also thought that the idea came from John Steinbeck’s book Travels With Charley.
The subject was the integration of black children in American schools. Little Ruby Bridges was filmed making her way into the William Franz School at 8:40 am. At this time, a gigantic crowd of 150 white women and male youth had gathered. They threw tomatoes and shouted vile comments at the tiny girl. It is hard to look at this picture without being affected.
Books
I got some books out from the library which I thought would be useful. They were looking at posters during the war and also war propaganda. Both very fitting with my idea for a publication.
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