Exploring Photomontage as War Propaganda
‘Exploring Photomontage as War Propaganda’
Artists have used many mediums to create propaganda for various reasons and causes. Propaganda is thought to have originated in 1622 with the spread of Christian beliefs to non-Catholic countries by Pope Gregory XV and the Congregation de Propaganda Fide (Congregation for the Probation of Faith). The term propaganda is very broad, in it’s simplest sense it is described as information or ideas that are deliberately spread, to influence an audience.
This essay explores the technique of photomontage and combines this with painting as a powerful tool for propaganda. The artists and images this paper refers to are artists John Heartfield and his 1963 Spanish War montage, Liberty herself fights in their ranks and Peter Kennard’s 1984 The Haywain with Cruise Missiles. Both artists use historical, well known paintings and combine them with contemporary news photographs, to create different sorts of propaganda.
In cultural terms propaganda involves presenting ideas to a audience in aid of changing peoples attitudes towards a certain cause. It must heighten the awareness of issues, attract new people and convince the opposition to change their mind. According to Lasswell, 1927 p629, ‘Propagandas may be revolutionary or counter revolutionary, reformist or counter-reformist‘. He believes that no form of propaganda can be ‘pigeon-holed’ in to a certain category, that this idea of doing this was convenient and not to ‘satisfy yearnings for the immortal and the immutable’. This shows the broad scope in which the term propaganda lays, and that anything that contains a message against, or for, a cause is classified by this term.
The most common use, and the subject this paper will study, is political propaganda. It may be used by political parties to heighten the awareness of there cause or by there opposition, to get people to change there views. War propaganda can be quite powerful, its aim is to de-humanize and
Artists have used many mediums to create propaganda for various reasons and causes. Propaganda is thought to have originated in 1622 with the spread of Christian beliefs to non-Catholic countries by Pope Gregory XV and the Congregation de Propaganda Fide (Congregation for the Probation of Faith). The term propaganda is very broad, in it’s simplest sense it is described as information or ideas that are deliberately spread, to influence an audience.
This essay explores the technique of photomontage and combines this with painting as a powerful tool for propaganda. The artists and images this paper refers to are artists John Heartfield and his 1963 Spanish War montage, Liberty herself fights in their ranks and Peter Kennard’s 1984 The Haywain with Cruise Missiles. Both artists use historical, well known paintings and combine them with contemporary news photographs, to create different sorts of propaganda.
In cultural terms propaganda involves presenting ideas to a audience in aid of changing peoples attitudes towards a certain cause. It must heighten the awareness of issues, attract new people and convince the opposition to change their mind. According to Lasswell, 1927 p629, ‘Propagandas may be revolutionary or counter revolutionary, reformist or counter-reformist‘. He believes that no form of propaganda can be ‘pigeon-holed’ in to a certain category, that this idea of doing this was convenient and not to ‘satisfy yearnings for the immortal and the immutable’. This shows the broad scope in which the term propaganda lays, and that anything that contains a message against, or for, a cause is classified by this term.
The most common use, and the subject this paper will study, is political propaganda. It may be used by political parties to heighten the awareness of there cause or by there opposition, to get people to change there views. War propaganda can be quite powerful, its aim is to de-humanize and
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