Art and Propaganda: Is it possible to and where to draw the line?
Exercises in Architectural History Not#inforthis? Countering populism and propaganda in the era of post-truth Dr. Sarah Hegenbart Summer Semester 2018-2019
Deniz BOZDAÄž denizbozdagd@gmail.com
INDEX
A. Introduction i.
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Definitions
B. Art and Propaganda over the years
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ii. Cave Paintings iii. Trajan’s Column iv. Church commissioned paintings C. Making Statements through Art
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v. Guernica vi. Transparency D. Architecture and Propaganda
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vii. Haus der (Deutschen) Kunst viii.The Wall E. Conclusion
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F. Bibliography
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G. Images
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Introduction What art is has always been one of the most complex questions of our existence. What defines a work to be art and/or of beauty? What is the purpose of making art? What separates artworks telling a story from a propagandistic ground and others which are simply made with artistry intensions? Seeking to find a purpose, we come across another set of questions: investigating how art serves as a propaganda medium and where we draw the line, if there is one, between art and propaganda. The seminar #Not In For This, led by Dr. Sarah Hegenbart, continuously raised similar questions in discussions. As a group, participants researched and learned how fine arts, performative arts, and architecture have played roles in different periods and circumstances. Different points of views were represented in many articles and essays that have been discussed. In this research paper similar questions will be investigated on a greater spectrum of different time periods. Starting from cave paintings all the way to contemporary art in 2010’s, crucial examples will be analysed thoroughly and as detailed as possible with the related imagery presented. These examples will be examined if they have propagandistic motives and how these motives impact the art works’ value.
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Definitions According to the Cambridge Dictionary; Propaganda is defined as: “information, ideas, opinions, or images, often only giving one part of an argument, that are broadcast, published, or in some other way spread with the intention of influencing people's opinions.” [1] Propaganda is often a tool used by powerful leaders and higher authorities to influence and promote, and they use different mediums to do so. Parties have used art and architecture to promote their ideas since the Stone Age. Subtle or more evident traces of propaganda can be found in many art works. Examples will be given and these works will be analysed in this context throughout this paper. The Cambridge Dictionary defines Art as the following: “the making of objects, images, music, etc. that are beautiful or that express feelings.” [2] The Oxford Dictionary also offers: “The expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power.” [3] Defining art has always been a complicated process for many years. But the majority accepts artworks to be works of creativity that seek to spark many different emotions in the viewer. Milton Glaser, in his 2008 keynote address at “Where the Truth Lies: A Symposium on Propaganda Today,” sponsored by the School of Visual Arts in New York City, quotes Horace. The Roman philosopher and critic wrote: “The purpose of art is to inform and delight.” [4] Nowadays artists, art critics, and viewers have an even broader definition for art and what can be counted as artworks. Art is in every small thing in people’s daily lives. It’s in the way lives are designed: not just in galleries’ white cubes. It is in the cup one drinks coffee from in the morning, in the billboards cars pass by during commuting; not just in the large frames hung in offices or classrooms, it is in the media or on the streets in the form of hundreds of people marching for the causes they believe in. Coming to the topic of art and propaganda and how related they are; many artists, including writers, have voiced their opinion on this on-going debate, some more adamant than others. Some say that art and propaganda go hand in hand. No artwork is ever not trying to tell something and no “successful” propaganda can be performed without a vision of artistic concerns. In George Orwell’s book, All Art is Propaganda, he says: “All art is propaganda; on the other hand, not all propaganda is art.” [5] 2
Art and Propaganda over the years
To be able to search for and determine propagandistic motives in art, one should be thorough and start with the earliest examples. Once humans start to evolve their art evolves with them. In every era of the humankind, art shines through different cracks. It takes the shape of the careful brush strokes on the walls of caves and becomes a design of a column. It acts as a story teller in spreading religions and becomes a statement about what the artist truly stands against.
Cave paintings The first examples of what can be defined as artworks were the pictures painted by homo sapiens inside the caves they lived in. These cave paintings date back to the Stone Age, or rather the Palaeolithic period to be more specific, meaning to around 22,000 years ago. One of the very well known paintings is the depiction of a bison found in the cave of Altamira, Spain. [i] As seen in this painting in mostly red with black outlines, homo sapiens took a minimal approach and did not dwell in details or hyper-realistic features. Among the depictions found in the walls of caves; hunting scenarios, tools, and the animals they hunted appear quite often. From other examples it can also be seen that they created a variety of abstract images as well as naturalistic pictures. There are some with geometric shapes, straight or wavy lines as well as some more complex abstract paintings. The lack of painting landscape in cave paintings is however something to keep in mind. What was the purpose of the first humans then, painting their walls with the paint and the tools they self-made? Some say that cave art might have a religious function, that they might be a part of shamanic rituals and practices. Because apparently these practices sometimes include a person to go into a deep cave and perform a shamanic ceremony to connect with souls and lost ones. Among religious functions, some experts say the paintings were to keep track and educate their offspring. A hunter would draw the hunting scenes, the tools, the techniques to teach how to hunt. The glorious paintings of big wild animals that they hunted may also serve as a trophy. Showing that specific hunter’s bravery and strength, they give the hunter something to show off with after the hunted is eaten and gone. Other than the religious or symbolic functions, these paintings may have no meaning aside from pure artistry and the need to express one’s self also.
Trajan’s Column As the homo sapiens evolve, towering Ziggurats rise in ancient Mesopotamia and giant pyramids are built in Egypt. These are artistic and architectural forms of propaganda, all serving to 3
empower the leaders of the time along their initial purposes. Thousands of years later it’s the era of emperors in the Roman Empire. In the times of brutal wars and risky diplomatic negotiations; one has to be strong, persuasive, and charismatic to keep power and rule over a great empire. To be able to do this, the time’s rulers always seek the help of art and architecture to keep power and sometimes even to manipulate the people. Trajan is one of the most memorable Roman emperors, ruling the empire in 106-113 CE. During his 19 year long rule, the empire reaches its biggest surface area and gains strength in every aspect. The victory against Dacians especially immensely affects the empire for the better. The loot the Roman army comes back with is grand and it empowers the empire greatly. After the victory, Trajan commissions a grand plan for a forum to commemorate the victory. The forum includes a spacious plaza surrounded by colonnades, two libraries, a big civic space called the Basilica Ulpia, and a great column. The Trajan’s Column stands, in the forum with the same name, in Rome. With its 38 meter height, in all its glory, it tells its stories engraved in strips all around it. The column serves as a reminder of the bravery and the nobility of the Roman army but more so definitely of the emperor himself. The column tells the story of the two victories the Roman Empire won against the Dacians. Trajan appears in the column’s carvings 58 times; depicted as an intelligent commander, accomplished negotiator, and a powerful ruler. He is the hero of the story as well as the narrator one might even say. Because his intensions are clear in commissioning this piece. He wants to be remembered for his contribution to the Empire. There is no blood-shed or other horrible realities of war depicted in the piece aside from a couple scenes where the Roman soldiers present Trajan severed enemy heads. [ii] The army in the carvings includes African cavalrymen as well as Iberians, Levantine archers, Germans in pants which separate them from the toga wearing Romans. These soldiers from different ethnicities are all together and fighting the Dacians, suggesting that anyone can become a Roman and be a part of this great empire, as long as they are in Trajan’s command of course. The forum itself is also filled with spoils and both subtle and more obvious reminders of their victory. Therefore, a major function of the Trajan Forum is propaganda for the Dacian Wars and a great plan of Trajan to empower his command. Because the Dacians had no written language, there is no way of knowing their side of the story or determining how true these depictions might be about what actually happened. Archeologists and historians filter what they have from these Roman sources. Since Trajan continued to rule over the Roman Empire and still is counted as one of the greatest Roman 4
emperors, it might be accurate to say these pieces he commissioned with propagandistic motives were successful in their purposes.
Church commissioned paintings
As Christianity starts spreading rapidly, newly built churches seek a way to strengthen their power and invite more people in their churches and religion. One of the things they do is that they turn to fine arts’ capabilities of influencing people. They commission many artists to make paintings and altar pieces to garnish the interiors of the churches. These paintings, almost always, are embroidered with gold, accentuating the glory and prosperity their religion offers. They are usually large and make the viewer aware of the importance of the people that are depicted in the painting. Holy people depicted are not portrayed in historical accuracy most of the time. [iii] For example when painters, especially in the Renaissance Period, paint Mary and the infant (Madonna and the Child) she looks like a queen or a lady of wealth with good life standards. However the painters know that she could not possibly live the life depicted in paintings at the time of birth. These additions for example are clearly in propagandistic motives. They are there to impress people and raise the value of religion. The European Renaissance is clearly influenced by religion and because nearly all of Europe were Christians, that religion is Christianity. Therefore the art developed is meant for religious propaganda, depicting biblical scenes, giving out religious messages and promoting the church and the religion. Christianity is portrayed as the only way to live, and that becomes what art is meant to do; change peoples opinions and make them believe in churches’ preaches. Madonna and the Child, Annunciation, Crucifixion of Jesus, Judgment Day, etc., become phenomenons that almost all of the time’s artists are commissioned to paint. Despite the fact that the styles of individual artists differ to a careful eye, in a museum one might even wonder if he has stumbled upon the same painting twice because of the similarities in composition and overall atmosphere in all the era’s paintings. They almost become fabricated paintings that have to have a certain set of elements in certain depictions and the rest, which is not much, is left to the artist’s own style and artistry.
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Making Statements through Art Guernica Propaganda in art is not only used by powerful authorities. It can also be used to voice the people through an artist’s work. In the beginning of the 20th century, the world is devastated and exhausted with a world war and the many civil wars within civilizations that come as an aftermath and eventually leads to the second world war. In a gruesome atmosphere like this, artists have nothing to do but reflect to these emotions in their works. Picasso, being one of these artists, is commissioned in 1937 to paint for the Spanish Pavilion at the Paris International Exposition. The work he produces: Guernica, is a mural sized painting inspired by the bombings in a small town called Basque. [iv] The painting in its raw black and white palette portrays human figures, a bull, and a horse in a frenzy. The whole composition is a big mess of tangled bodies and extravagant emotional expressions. Bodies laying lifeless in the helpless arms of loved ones who wail in agony, animals perplexed with the senseless hustle happening around them, it is just a moment after the bombs have hit the ground. It is such a dynamic piece in spite of the lack of color use. The light coming from the weirdly shaped head light, which some say resembles an actual bomb explosion, lighten the faces of people on the move going around in this moment of great worry, agony and shock. It lays bare the cruelty and unfairness of wars and how it affects the innocent more than anyone else. It is such a strong anti war statement that is still relevant today. In this context Guernica can surely be an example of propaganda and art in a harmonised marriage. With Guernica, Picasso shows that fine arts can serve the people to promote their ideas too. Propaganda in art is not only a tool for powerful leaders and high authorities. Guernica in later years becomes more universal and even takes a life beyond canvas. It appears in stand-ins for Dresden, Berlin, Hiroshima where defenceless civilians were attacked. Reproductions are carried in protests all over the world. [v]
Transparency In the 21st century art and what is defined as an artwork begin to come in many unique forms. Contemporary art and especially performance art continue to raise eyebrows and the viewers are asked to participate and put more thought to be able to understand the work more than prior times. Performative artworks sometimes blur the lines between propaganda and art. Some of them seek to provoke new ideas promoting one idea on the other hand protesting another. 6
Transparency is a performative art piece done by the Silsila Collective based in Istanbul, Turkey. The Collective consists of a group of high school students and artist Jeffrey Baykal-Rollins as their art teacher, instructor and curator. SALT Galata, a renowned art gallery in Turkey, had an exhibition called ‘It Was a Time of Conversation’ in 2012. The exhibition examines three collaborative exhibitions in Turkey from the 90s by providing access to the original documents from each of these exhibitions’ archives. With “Transparanlık/Transparency”, Silsila Collective offers a collaborative student response to this exhibition by considering this “open archive” out in the open of public space. [vi] On the Silsila Collective’s website, it states:
“Eighteen students from Robert College created a large transparent banner using imagery from the SALT exhibition, cross-woven with images and text from a wide-range of media coverage of current events. The banner the students constructed mirrors the “Gar Sergi” banner installed in SALT’s exhibition, and was completed at SALT Galata during the last of a series of workshop sessions. Students then carried the banner in silence, from the space of the exhibition back into the public domain. … Transparency is a collective project that investigates the idea of transparency in relation to democracy by weaving together images from past and present media, creating an open archive that was transported through public space.” [6]
This work of visual art and public performance is a response to the current exhibition, ‘It Was a Time of Conversation’. The artwork is actually in the moment of that silent walk they take on the busy street with strange looking stares on them. The work has the actual banner as a result of the performance but it is the process of the making and presenting the banner to the public which counts as the artwork as a whole. Students create something out of the things they were given in this case headlines and news sections from national newspapers of Turkey in 1990s. By making the banner transparent they question the transparency of the media and how biased it might be. They are protesting in the most subtle way without dialogue, it is almost like a painting that is walking. As the saying goes, which Banksy also uses, art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable. It is exactly what this performance is doing.
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Architecture and Propaganda Architecture is used as a propagandistic tool to intentionally communicate ideas of power and politics for many years if not always. Architects have the ability to create a social narrative that revolves around physical and theoretical construction and destruction of parties. Architecture plays a role in influencing viewers while being influenced at the same time. Nowadays designs are even more affected and moulded in the way the political or economical aspirations intend them to. Higher authorities and leaders of nations try to use design and architecture to prove a point and their power economically or politically. This definitely does not sound too unfamiliar because it is the exact strategy the Pharaohs of Ancient Egypt and Roman emperors like Trajan and many others used before.
Haus der (Deutschen) Kunst In 1930-1940s when National Socialist Party is in power, architecture in Germany is definitely controlled and manipulated as a propaganda tool. The way buildings are designed and the plans of a newly constructed city plan in Munich, where Hitler had his head quarters and many people related to the party lived and worked, clearly are designed in a propagandistic motive. Haus der Kunst building in Munich, is one of the first representative buildings of the time. Adolf Hitler hires the architect Paul Ludwig Troost and the construction begins in 1934. The building is to serve as a blatant and huge propaganda to National Socialist Regime. Art has been hugely important to their ideology, therefore even the plans of a new, polished and enormous building to exhibit German artworks is a strong propaganda in itself. The style the building is designed tells many things about the motives of the architect. [vii] The size of the whole body of the building can be quite scary. One can feel very small and insignificant climbing the steps and walking into the arcade surrounded by excess number of very large columns. This was the exact feeling that the architectural style of the design is intended to give. They wanted the person walking in and around the building to feel small and weak unless they were a part of a bigger group. This supports the ideology’s emphasis on strength in unity and togetherness. Many other examples can be given for national socialist architecture which show architecture is used as a very crucial and successful, one might even say, tool of propaganda in 1930’s and onwards.
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The Wall In an industrialised society, powerful people and people of wealth want to show their wealth and prestige in any way possible. The political leaders however are possibly the most able to do so. In the 21st century architectural propaganda can be in many forms, some subtle others more apparent. When Donald Trump’s presidency began in 2017, the propaganda leaders use took a whole new and solid meaning. The wall that he still suggests to build on the southern border of the United States of America is a total reliance on the power of architectural propaganda. Architecture plays a fundamental role in the propagandized rhetoric of the Trump Administration which harbour an ideology with an unquestionable emphasis on nationalism.
Conclusion After looking at key examples from various time periods, spanning over thousands of years, and investigating the relationship between art and propaganda, the paper sums up as the following. Art and propaganda have always been on the two sides of a medallion. Every artwork that had something to say is, to a certain extent, a form of propaganda. Whether it is a propaganda of an artist’s completely personal opinions or serves to a much bigger case it is in propagandistic motives. Although the motives behind some artworks remain a mystery, it is possible to find many other clear approaches to support this idea. It is not very possible for art historians to clearly depict the reasons behind cave paintings thus relating them to propagandistic motives. However homo sapiens using the paintings of the animal they hunted as trophies or for commemorating their bravery and success is a possibility that cannot be denied fully. The depictions on Trajan’s Column are definitely designed in order to empower the emperor and keep his reign over the great Roman Empire. As the Church commissions paintings to tell the stories from the Bible, they become great examples of religious propaganda. By the help of many reproductions of the same scenes and compositions people are informed about Christianity and invited to join the churches. Guernica is the propaganda of an artist, protesting wars and laying bare the gruesome after math. The violence innocent people are bound to go through is condemned and Guernica is still a powerful piece of propaganda with high artistic values. Transparency, the performance art piece, might remind one of the protestors using paper cutouts of the figures in Guernica in their marches. 9
In these cases the art becomes the propaganda itself. The works are already saying something either promoting an idea or protesting another, they already have a voice. Therefore people using them on a further level as mediums of protest can be seen as quite intelligent and powerful. Architecture and design are also artworks that have been crucial tools of political propaganda for many years. These examples given are the specific art works that are believed to be propagandistic motives, promoting one belief or the other used by authorities or the people themselves. Along side these examples, there are definitely others without any motives aside from artistry and shall not be considered in this argument in this context. Coming back to the question of where we draw the line between art and propaganda, it might be a good idea to quote George Orwell again who says: “All art is propaganda; on the other hand, not all propaganda is art.” Art is the creative act of expressing one’s feelings and thoughts. All art is actually to a certain extent propaganda. But what should be kept in mind is the freedom art gives. The more useful question to ask might be: what’s trying to change one’s mind versus what’s trying to expand it. In the instance of art, the mind can change and is free to do so. But in pure propaganda which has no artistic intensions, the mind is given no choice. Propagandistic motives have always been present in art and will most definitely continue to be so. To draw a strict line between art and propaganda would be inadequate and senseless according to the many examples given in this research. The better separation might be done like the following: propaganda that carries artistic vision and propaganda that doesn’t.
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Bibliography: Works Cited
[1] “PROPAGANDA | Meaning in the Cambridge English Dictionary.” Cambridge Dictionary, dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/propaganda.
[2] “ART | Meaning in the Cambridge English Dictionary.” Cambridge Dictionary, dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/art.
[3] “Art | Definition of Art in English by Oxford Dictionaries.” Oxford Dictionaries | English, Oxford Dictionaries, en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/art.
[4] Article by Milton Glaser February 26. “Art and Propaganda.” AIGA, www.aiga.org/art-andpropaganda.
[5] Orwell, George, and George Packer. All Art Is Propaganda: Critical Essays. Harcourt, 2009.
[6] Baykal-Rollins, Jeffrey. “SILSILA.” SILSILA, 1 Jan. 2014, silsilacollective.blogspot.com/.
Marien, Mary Warner., and Fleming, William. Arts and Ideas. Thomson/Wadsworth, 2005.
Cookson, Jerome N., et al. “Trajan's Amazing Column.” Trajan's Amazing Column | National Geographic, www.nationalgeographic.com/trajan-column/article.html.
“Guernica, 1937 by Pablo Picasso.” Henri Matisse, www.pablopicasso.org/guernica.jsp.
“Haus Der Kunst.” MUNICHfound.com, www.munichfound.com/sightseeing/all_landmarks/ hausderkunst/. 11
Images i. Cave painting in Altamira, Spain
https://www.ancient.eu/Altamira/
ii.
Trajan’s Column, Rome
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/trajan-column/article.html
iii. Madonna and Child by Carlo Crivelli, c 1480 https://pinacotecabrera.org/en/
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iv. Guernica by Pablo Picasso, 1937
https://www.pablopicasso.org/guernica.jsp
v.
https://www.pablopicasso.org/guernica.jsp
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vi. Transparency, Silsila Collective
http://silsilacollective.blogspot.com/
vii. Haus der Kunst, Munich
www.architectsjournal.co.uk/
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