How Have Images and Designs Been Used as Social Protest and Propaganda?

How have images and designs been used as tools of social protest or propaganda?

"Where there is activism there are graphics"1, where there is politics there is graphic shock. Art and propaganda have gone hand in hand for hundreds of years. Communication via visual forms has enabled global concerns to be seen by everyone.

Our culture is lead by carefully crafted words and images, they can control and have the power to shape society's responses.

In 1916 an art movement began, that abandoned all forms of law and government, and threw off all tradition. Dada was based on principles of deliberate anarchy, rejection of beauty and believed in chance events.

"Art should altogether get a sound thrashing", Dadaist Richard Hulsenbeck, "and Dada stands for that thrashing with all the vehemence of its limited nature" 2 .

Photomontage offered a more direct way of producing propaganda imagery within the Dada movement. This technique required no specialist skills and therefore changes the perception that an artist is trained.

An early example of deliberate propaganda is Pablo Picasso's Guernica. This political painting was commissioned by Spain's Republican government, who asked for a mural-sized picture for the spanish pavilion of the 1937 Paris world's fair3 . The topic of the Guernica was initiated from the bombing of the Basque town of Guernica.

This painting portrays outrage and is an important statement within the politico - cultural alliance. Many argued that the Guernica was too vague in describing its topic, and said that the meaning was dependent on its title and context. Yet many political posters of that time would not be legible in context without their written slogans.

Propaganda images are formulated to communicate individually and consequently the Guernica was designed to be understood along with spanish Civil War images.

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The Guernica raised the question - "does it work?". In comparison to the contemporary