Choosing a Question and Theme

My chosen question is-

“Discuss the role that Illustration can play during periods of political and/or social upheaval."

I have collected 20 images that relate to the question. This research helped me understand the question and discover some of the wide variety of ways that Illustration has been used over a long period of time and in contrasting social and political situations. In the last session we were given one of the questions and researched them using the library and the internet. We collected definitions of the given question form a variety of sources to get a good understanding of varying views of key components of the subject. We also collected 2 photos and explained why we had chosen them and there relevance to the question itself. For this exercise we were given the question 
“How did Postmodernism impact on Illustration?"

I did an essay on postmodernism last year as part of an access course and still struggle to find a way to define it. I think this is due to the fact that postmodernism can be applied to a wide variety of contexts and that there is still a lot of argument about its  characteristics. Because postmodernism is a reaction to modernism you need to know the philosophies and beliefs of modernism first to be able to understand postmodernism. The images I used to demonstrate postmodernism were a Simpsons version of the Nirvana album cover and Andy Warhol's campbells soup painting. Both of these pieces blur the lines between illustration and fine art and show signs of postmodernism's relationship with popular culture. 

After this session I decided i did not want to choose that question as the basis of my essay so i chose “Discuss the role that Illustration can play during periods of political and/or social upheaval."
I collected 20 images that I think have a strong link to this question and i have visually responded to 3 of them. 

The first picture I chose to create a response to is this one of the statue of liberty gagged by the second amendment. I like the use of a well known national monument and symbol of freedom and America as a character.

for my response i used Big Ben as the eye of Sauron to represent the surveillance state of the united kingdom and the mistrust aimed at the government.

The second image i chose is one of sea creatures crying over the body of a child washed up on a beach while trying to escape conflict and seek asylum.

My response shows a child crying looking over a fence at a pig that is about to be slaughtered while the pig is crying for the child that has a cancerous tumor caused by eating bacon. This idea is based on the recent resrch showing that bacon as well as other meats has been found to be carcinogenic and the modern trends relating to humane treatment of animals.

The third image I chose is of refugees on a boat travelling to get aid from a country that is effectively sponsoring the weapons that have led to them needing aid in the first place.

 My response is a similar layout but the scenery has been removed and replaced with hands representing the the governments that are causing this exchange. Facilitating  hatred and death upon the same people.

Image Analysis-part 1

The first image by Schumacher and Ettlinger is as advert for the "Uncle Sam Range" stove and oven and is comparable with modern day adverts although the main emphasis  seems to advertising America itself rather than a specific product. The image is crammed full of imagery that showcases the financial, political and trade power of the U.S. the image portrays 'Ucle Sam' at the head of the table with characters representing the south, east and England taking a back seat.

The clock on the mantle piece shows the time line between American independence and what was then present day, this could be to show how much an independant America has achieved in this time. The globe at the table is holding an almost unending lsit of produce from around the world which may signify Americas trade links all over the world. Even though these products have been taken from foreign lands and brought to America the 'Uncle Sam' character seems to be showing off the productr of the "Uncle Sam Range" as if to show the world what they have achieved. Everything in the image is bold and bright and covered in imagery celebtrating America from the carpet and wallpaper to the rifles on the wall. One very dark aspect of the advert is the inclusion of a slave who is operating the range. As everything in the image seems to be a celebration of power i can only assume the inclusion of the slave is no exception, meaning that at this point in time slavery was not something to be ashamed of or hidden in any way rather it was held up as a status symbol.

These images are depicted using Art-Deco prints with simple bold uniform lettering as apposed to the bombardment of information and complex heavily embellished lettering of the first image. The term graphic design was coined by William Addison Dwiggins in 1922 and could be part of the reason these images differ so much even though they aim to achieve similar goals. Designers may well have been starting to understand more about visual communication, realising that simpler bold text stripped down to statements rather than more complex sentence structure have more of an impact on the audience. At this point in time colonialism was being met with criticism regarding the economic and moral implications and this campaign was designed to show the positive effects. Slavery had been made illegal by this point so the poster attempts to show how much colonialism has improved life in the colonies while assuring the public at home of the benevolent control of the white man.

Both the white man and 'Uncle Sam' seem to be trying to show how they are generous and having a positive effect on other nations while exploiting their natural resources. The first image uses traditional illustration and a large amount of fairly crude symbolism whereas the second set of images uses makes use of popular art movements of the time. This may be due to the target audience of wealthy would be investors back home in England.

Preparatory Task

Definitions

Social

'Needing companionship and therefore best suited to living in communities'- Google definitions

“If you tremble with indignation at every injustice then you are a comrade of mine.” -Ernesto Che Guevara

Illustration by Pawel Kuczynski

Photo taken from David J Rodger Wordpress, credit unknown

Cultural

'Of or relating to artistic or social pursuits or events considered to be valuable or enlightened'-TheFreeDictionary.com 

“The first step to controlling your world is to control your culture. To model and demonstrate the kind of world you demand to live in. to write the books. Make the music. Shoot the films. Paint the art.” -Chuck Palahniuk

Mario Illustration by Tilt

 Credit Unknown

Historical

'Based on or reconstructed from an event, custom, style etc., in the past.'

-dictionary.reference.com

"We are not makers of history.We are made by history."

-Martin Luther King, Jr

Ages of Batman.- techmash.com

300 Illustration by Ben Herrera.

Political.

'Chiefly derogatory done or acting in the interests of status or power within an organisation rather than as a matter of principle.'- oxforddictionaries.com

 "All the ills of mankind, all the tragic misfortunes that fill the history books, all the political blunders, all the failures of great leaders have arisen merely from a lack of skill at dancing."

-Moliere

 Illustration by Denman Rooke.

 Photo-manipulation by Deviant Art user WarUnderground

Technological. 

'Resulting from improvements in technical process that increase productivity of machines and eliminates manual operations or operations done by older machines.'

-merriam-webster.com

"it has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded out humanity."

-Albert Einstein.

Image from sigmadog.com

Image by Aleksandr Kuskov