Week 2 Apply and Reflect
One of my favorite pieces of symbolic and political pieces is the "Massacre in Korea" by Picasso. In fact, several of Picassos pieces focused on politics, as he himself went though a civil war in France.
Many of these pieces focus on a war poltical message, and in "Massacre in Korea", its messaging is clear. The piece was constructed around the Americans role in the Korean War. The Americans are depicted as lifeless automatons and the humans are drawn strangely. Both sides of the war are depicted as the way the other side would see them. The humans as foreign and the robots as soulless. The color choice also really shows the dead heart of war.
As for myself, I am not very good at implementing symbolism in still images. However, I find it easier to write symbolism than to draw it, as visual ideas don't come through as clear as metaphors in themes do. For example I am currently writing a story that is a metaphor for the dangers of fascism using bugs and their odd rituals to symbolize the self destructiveness of fascism. The art is clean and simple, though perhaps a rough look would speak more to the political ideology of the group
Hi Nathan! This is a really great piece to connect to this week's reading. I like how you brought up the symbolism of the soulless, robotic American soldiers and the use of color. All of these elements work to create a really powerful message. My question for you is, do you think pieces like this have the power to create social change? Why or why not? As for something to improve on, the only thing I can suggest would be to make your post a bit longer so we can hear more of your ideas.
ReplyDeleteI don't think this piece on its own has the power to create social change, but the artists as a collective whole do. A single artist has the power to make a statement, a group has the power to motivate a movement. While there are many popular pieces centered around political movements, they're typically just the pieces made by the more popular artists at the time.
DeleteHi Nathan,
ReplyDeleteI like how you focused on the symbolism in Picasso's art as I don't know many people who do. A suggestion I have for you regarding putting symbolism into your own art is that since you art good a writing symbolism into things then perhaps take the things you write and turn them into images. You can do this with the actual words, choose the symbolic words and create a sort of collage image, or create the images based on the scene you see in your head as you write. Why do you use bugs is a good symbol for the self destructiveness of fascism?
Hey Nathan, this is a really powerful peace and it speaks volumes. I think Pablo Picasso got his message across when this political piece was published, the women and children showing fear and not showing violence while the soldiers were getting violent. I need to more research on him, I really like how he made such an impactful peace depicting what happened in the Korean War.
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