The use of images and symbols as a tool for the dissemination of social, political, or religious ideas is a traditional facet of the visual arts. All artistic production is necessarily representative of its creator and its time and consequently holds some propaganda value. The most common use of art as a propaganda tool is through the manipulation of narrative art and graphic symbols to alter the viewer’s opinion. This function of art has been extensively used in modern times to engender support for ideologies and political regimes, but it dates back to Egyptian and other ancient civilizations.
The intimate relationship between artistic production and the state underlies the persuasive element of fine art. Egyptian, Roman, and medieval rulers all used art to support their regimes; similarly, the despots of Renaissance Italian states and the early modern monarchies of Western Europe saw art and architecture as a means to bolster their rule. Art communicated the self-confidence of the rising nations of the seventeenth century, such as the Netherlands. The state deployment of art in eighteenth-century Europe is best seen in the work of Jacques-Louis David (1748—1825), whose Oath of the Horatii (1785) can be seen as an intensely dramatic affirmation of patriotism. Similarly, David’s depiction of the death of Marat endowed that revolutionary leader with the status of an icon. David’s later depictions of Napoleon are a prime example of art as propaganda intended to mythologize and glorify a regime. Many of the forms established in doing this were resurrected throughout the nineteenth century, such as in Eugene Delacroix’s (1798—1863) Liberty Leading the People (1830).
The Napoleonic Wars were a popular subject for history painting and narrative art. By this time the very nature of the subject matter was calculated to elicit a nationalist response. In Spain, Goya’s Third of May 1808 (1814) became the supreme expression of Spanish Nationalism.Art became a central element in nationalism across nineteenth-century Europe.
The British taste for narrative art was pervasive throughout the nineteenth century. Celebratory art glorified imperialism, endorsing Britain’s claim to a God-given right to rule over colonial nations. This narrative impulse also lent itself to social and moral commentary; a tradition of satire flourished alongside more academic subjects, as in the work of William Hogarth (1697—1764) and James Gillray (1757—1815). In France this social content of art established itself through works such as Raft of the Medusa (1819) by Theodore Gericault (1791—1824), a polemic against the Bourbon restoration and readable as political allegory. Gericault’s artistic legacy can be seen in realism and social realist art.
In the twentieth century the rise of the avantgarde led to the breakdown of academic hierarchy. Such work, created outside formal social structures, loosened the hold of history painting, although its principles, particularly as a strong tool for propaganda, are still evident in Picasso’s Guernica (1937) and the output of the socialist-inspired Mexican Muralists. The avant-garde rested on the idea of the autonomy of the artist; hence this mode of art would be challenged by the restrictions on art production imposed by mid-twentieth-century dictatorships. The strict regulation of the art world under various totalitarian regimes was unprecedented in the annals of art history and represented the high point of the appropriation of art as propaganda.
In Nazi Germany the state sponsored both high and low art. The Nazis imposed strict controls on all aspects of culture. Artistic style and subject matter alike had to reflect the idealized values of the volk (people). This contrasts with Fascist Italy, which saw some crossover between official art and modernism. The tenets of a “German Art” were displayed in the famous exhibition “Blut und Boden” (Blood and Soil) of 1935, which promoted the depiction of idyllic scenes and heroic individuals in monumental poses. Portrayals of the workers themselves were generally subordinated to displays of heavy industry, and unemployment was never shown. Posters, an immediate form of communication ideally suited to the government’s aim, played an important role in wartime propaganda. Artists creating opposition propaganda included John Heartfield (1891— 1968), whose photomontages satirized Nazi policy.
In the USSR art figured in Soviet “Agitprop” (Agitational Propaganda). The most famous example of Agitprop art was Vladimir Tatlin’s (1895—1953) Monument to the Third Communist International, a response to Lenin’s call for monumental propaganda. Agitprop was all-embracing in society: even candy wrappers were used in this way. The dynamic tradition of Russian modernist art gave way to a dreary academic style glorifying the party, the state, or workers. Only political posters remained a vibrant and modern aesthetic medium.
In Mexico, Diego Rivera (1866—1957) considered mural painting a powerful form of propaganda and switched from his earlier Cubist style, winning international acclaim. His compatriots David Alfaro Siqueiros (1894—1974) and Jose Clemente Orozco (1883—1949) also received such praise. These artists eventually moved to the United States, where they won commissions and introduced a new political dimension into American art. Orozco completed a mural cycle in Dartmouth College (1932) depicting Western imperialism and twentieth-century industrialization. Siqueiros completed both Tropical America and Portrait of Present Day Mexico in Los Angeles. Rivera created the most famous mural of the group for Henry Ford, Detroit lndustry (1933), which presented a radical representation of labor and technology. A Rivera mural in Rockefeller Center in New York drew criticism because it included a portrait of Lenin; as a result the mural was destroyed.
The effect of the muralists on the American art scene was immense, especially in New York: the center of social realist art. Social realism in the United States was wholly different from the form seen in Soviet Russia. Artists such as Ben Shahn (1898—1969) and Phillip Evergood (1901—1973) took inspiration from labor unrest and racial discrimination. U.S. government responses to the Great Depression included the commissioning of art by the Works Progress Administration Federal Arts Projects (WPA-FAP). Famous (and controversial) works included the murals in the Coit Tower in San Francisco, with their apparent Communist subtext.
The Cold War had major implications for art, emphasizing the polarity between the free Western model of high-cultured, formalist, and abstract art against the Soviet model, which was figurative and restrictive. The CIA and other U.S. organizations subsidized and promoted U.S. abstract expressionist artists overseas as symbols of the creative freedom enjoyed within the U.S. system. Ironically many of these artists had been associated with the political left, and their abstract style was a conscious rejection of politics in art. Their role in the cultural Cold War was a case of art being appropriated as propaganda as opposed to the conscious construction of art as propaganda. Propaganda art found more fertile ground in criticizing the U.S. government during the Vietnam conflict through works such as the famous Art Workers Coalition piece Q.And Babies? A.And Babies (1970), which commented on the horror of the My Lai incident. The postmodern period has seen the marginalization of politicized art, although totalitarian art lives on in places like Iraq, China, and North Korea.
