One Harvard Referenced, Triangulated critical analysis of one illustration... drawing upon at least 3 seminar texts to deepen my reading. Comment on the sociopolitical contexts of illustration, and the responsibilities of the creative within these contexts...
The Dove of Peace by Picasso
One politically and socially engaged artist was
Picasso. He was actively engaged in the Peace movement and the French Communist
Party, and his work expressed his desire for worldwide understanding and
equality. His Dove of Peace was a
symbol of hope during the cold war and was the international emblem of the
Peace Movement. He dated his work which allows us to see how they aligned with
the world events that were going on at the time; such as the Fascist Victory,
the Liberation of France and the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Picasso created with the Dove of Peace an ‘extraordinarily powerful and lasting political
symbol, adopted by campaigners for peace, liberation and equality around the
globe.’ (Morris et al, 2010) For Picasso, doves had a huge personal significance;
his childhood memories filled with them as they were kept in the family home,
his father often painting them. A Child
with a Dove, 1901, identifies with the weak and vulnerable and symbolises a
universal longing for protection and safety. It has been associated with peace and
the suffering of children and women in all wars; according to Picasso; Peace and Freedom (Morris
et al, 2010);
100,000 badges of the Dove of Peace were distributed in the Marseilles region
of the French Communist Party. As Bruce Mau (1998) states, it is important to ‘work
the metaphor’, Picasso uses the dove to stand up for something other than what
is apparent; in this case, peace.
Michael Bierut (2007), argues that ‘the greatest
designers have always found ways to align the aims of their own corporate
clients with their own personal interests and, ultimately, with the public good…
the promise of design is about a simple thing: common decency.’ Picasso was
highly respected for his work towards public good; this can be witnessed in the
telegram sent to him by the Political Office of the French Communist Party on 24th
October 1956; 'Dear Picasso comrade at the time of your seventy fifth
birthday... You chose to be with the people, because your heart beats with that
of the people... Thanks dear comrade Picasso for all that you made to bring the
intellectuals closer to the working class.' The Communist Party Polit Bureau of
Picasso’s Paris neighbourhood also wrote of him in 1962: '...A little of this
honour reflects back on us who can count in our rows the generous artist who is
a man of conscience, who has received the reward of this high distinction. Born
from your genius, the Dove of Peace guides the flight of millions of men of all
continents toward a world where war will be banished.'
Garland (1964) argued that it is a huge waste for designers to work in the advertising
industry on ‘trivial purposes, which contribute little or nothing to our
national prosperity.’ In their opinion advertisements and commercial goods have
no positive impact on the world. They believe that there are pursuits much more
worthy of designers’ problem- solving skills such as environmental, social and
cultural crises. Picasso was an artist who dedicated his time to good causes
and used his work to simplify a message to extend to the greater public. As
Michael Bierut (2007) puts it ‘designers can actually can change the world for
the better by making the complicated simple and finding beauty in truth.’
However although Picasso’s
work was often created with a political or social theme in mind, his works
which have not been picked to represent a worldwide organisation are not any
less amazing. Even though it is hard for anyone to disagree with the messages
put forth in the First Things First
Manifestos it is hard to put them into practice. Their proposal for a ‘reversal
of properties in favour of the more useful and more lasting forms of
communication’ is vague and means that anything commercial must be negative to
the human condition; as the 2000 edition states ‘to some extent we are all
helping draft a reductive and immeasurably harmful code of public discourse.’
Rick Poyner (1999) states that the evidence of the wasted talent of designers ‘is
all around us in the ugliness with which we have to live.’
Although as the artist and
critic Johanna Drucker points out, we all need to ask ‘in whose interest and to
what ends?’ It is important to see the positives in commercial design; ‘in
monotony and drudgery of our work-a-day world there is to be found a new beauty
and a new aesthetic’ (Alexey Brodovitch, 1930), ‘graphic designers in
mid-century America were passionately committed to the idea that good design
was not simply an esoteric ideal, but could be used as a tool to ennoble the
activities of everyday life, including commercial life’ states Michael Bierut
(2007), asking ‘what will happen when the best designers
withdraw from that space, as First Things First demands? If they decline to fill
it with passion, intelligence, and talent, who will fill the vacuum?’ As
designer Bill Golden, the creator of the CBS eye, wrote over forty years ago; ‘I
happen to believe that the visual environment… improves each time a designer
produces a good design- and in no other way.’ If Picasso were around today would
his designs be used for anti-capitalist propaganda or would it be on the side
of cereal boxes. In different ways both are enriching our visual environment
and at least creativity is being seen and explored in all areas, especially in
something the public is so obsessed with; commercial goods.
References:
·
MORRIS, L., GRUNENBERG, C., BERNATOWICZ, P.,
DAIX, P., LAHODA, V., WIEVIORKA, A. (2010) Picasso:
Peace and Freedom. Liverpool: Tate.
·
GARLAND, K. (1964) First Things First Manifesto. Self Published.
·
LASN, K. et al (2000) First Things First Manifesto. Adbusters.
·
POYNER, R. (1999) First Things First: Revisited. Émigré 51.
·
MAU, B. (1998) An Incomplete Manifesto for Growth.
·
BEIRUT, M. (2007) Ten Footnotes to a Manifesto, in Seventy Nine Short Essays on Design.
