Yes, protest art, as you refer to it, has little effect for all the reasons you cite, but there are other ways to make art than making paintings and sculpture, and those practices can be more effective at moving the needle. Think community art activism. The strategy is to forget public opinion and aim at public consciousness. Opinion is superficial and entrenched. Change something deeper. Hard, slow work, but nothing else will stick. I’d also argue that even ‘Guernica’ changed nothing.
Thanks, Ann. I find Manet's Execution of the Emperor much more compelling at present than I might have felt, say, prior to Trump. I look at it and feel an uneasy echo of the immigrants shipped to Venezuela and of Alex Padilla being wrestled to the ground. As you know, we bring our own context to what we see in a painting, especially a painting from another time where the historical context may be unknown or at least unfamiliar to us. I am moved, especially by the second version you posted, with its obvious echo of Goya's painting. Thank you for your essay and for posting the images from the painting.
I couldn't agree more. Do check out the National Gallery curator's talk I linked in the post. It offers a lot of historical context and a chance to study at length one of Manet's versions of the story. Thanks for reading and commenting!
I would argue that culture is not a quid pro quo situation in that a political work doesn't cause an immediate return or response. BUT (and this is a big but) art matters.
If it didn't, the USSR and Hitler wouldn't have spent so much energy trying to suppress abstraction. Similarly, post WWII USA wouldn't have invested so much money and effort in promoting the "American" arts in Europe alongside their Marshall Plan. And Trump -who I am guessing has cultural taste akin to his culinary love of fast food-- saw it as important to take over the Kennedy Center, the Smithsonian, etc.
Art matters not because of its specificity but because it sets up a tone, an ethos. And even more importantly, it effectively records the history of the time. "Raft of Medusa" by Gericault was painted in response to the greed of slave ship owners heading to what we call Senegal. It exists now mostly as a compelling (non political) image of tragedy, but it also records a piece facts that were of concern in France at that time--just as Martha Rosler's photographic collages recorded the horrors of the Vietnam War 150 years later.
The subject of the essay was protest art, not the avant garde in the 20th century. The suppression of artists under Hitler, which I wrote about a few months ago, had nothing to do with their overt threats to power per se, but with imposing an Aryan point of view on the culture (it was curious that so many more people flocked to the "degenerate art" show than to the official exhibition at the Haus der deutschen Kunst.) And yes huge efforts were made to promote American art post World War II, but I'm not sure what that has to do with art that seeks to record the artist's outrage at war or politics.
Manet's series about the execution of Maximilian, Picasso's Guernica, and Gericault's Raft are all masterpieces, and have been recognized as such, but did the audiences of their day need reminding of the horrors they recorded? Were hearts and minds moved to change an opinion about the government, whether it was Napoleon III's or Francisco Franco's?
Yes, art matters as a history of what the times either cared about or loathed. My point was simply that it's not often very good as propaganda, no matter what your politics.
I was deeply moved by the napalmed girl. Jacob Landau in Roosevelt, NJ tried as a printmaker, like Ben Shahn, to make politcal art. He commemorated the Holocaust and John Brown and made a poster for the first Earth Day. I hope his efforts moved some. As a young artist I painted a long abstract mural about the bombing in Vietnam but it gained no traction in its obscure Princeton location. Later I tried to celebrate female peacemakers in the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom but that was a flop in the Philadelphia area. Posters for demonstrations can be an somewhat effective outlet.
Good piece, and we need more attention drawn to this issue. I have drawn much the same conclusion about political art. The artists and the art world get a lot out of it, but the idea that it has any real impact on politics is at best a delusion, at worst a kind of ego-trip on the part of artists. Here's a piece I wrote on the exhibition "Modern Art and Politics in German 1910-1945," which closed today (at the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth). All that German protest art during those war years, and not a shred of evidence that any of it affected the politics.
Yes, I remember your essay from Two Coats, and I even commented on it. And, yes, so much boffo art in the name of political atrocities but to what effect? I'm just glad a lot of it still survives.
Yes, protest art, as you refer to it, has little effect for all the reasons you cite, but there are other ways to make art than making paintings and sculpture, and those practices can be more effective at moving the needle. Think community art activism. The strategy is to forget public opinion and aim at public consciousness. Opinion is superficial and entrenched. Change something deeper. Hard, slow work, but nothing else will stick. I’d also argue that even ‘Guernica’ changed nothing.
Thanks, Ann. I find Manet's Execution of the Emperor much more compelling at present than I might have felt, say, prior to Trump. I look at it and feel an uneasy echo of the immigrants shipped to Venezuela and of Alex Padilla being wrestled to the ground. As you know, we bring our own context to what we see in a painting, especially a painting from another time where the historical context may be unknown or at least unfamiliar to us. I am moved, especially by the second version you posted, with its obvious echo of Goya's painting. Thank you for your essay and for posting the images from the painting.
I couldn't agree more. Do check out the National Gallery curator's talk I linked in the post. It offers a lot of historical context and a chance to study at length one of Manet's versions of the story. Thanks for reading and commenting!
Ann, Adding to the discussion :--)
I would argue that culture is not a quid pro quo situation in that a political work doesn't cause an immediate return or response. BUT (and this is a big but) art matters.
If it didn't, the USSR and Hitler wouldn't have spent so much energy trying to suppress abstraction. Similarly, post WWII USA wouldn't have invested so much money and effort in promoting the "American" arts in Europe alongside their Marshall Plan. And Trump -who I am guessing has cultural taste akin to his culinary love of fast food-- saw it as important to take over the Kennedy Center, the Smithsonian, etc.
Art matters not because of its specificity but because it sets up a tone, an ethos. And even more importantly, it effectively records the history of the time. "Raft of Medusa" by Gericault was painted in response to the greed of slave ship owners heading to what we call Senegal. It exists now mostly as a compelling (non political) image of tragedy, but it also records a piece facts that were of concern in France at that time--just as Martha Rosler's photographic collages recorded the horrors of the Vietnam War 150 years later.
The subject of the essay was protest art, not the avant garde in the 20th century. The suppression of artists under Hitler, which I wrote about a few months ago, had nothing to do with their overt threats to power per se, but with imposing an Aryan point of view on the culture (it was curious that so many more people flocked to the "degenerate art" show than to the official exhibition at the Haus der deutschen Kunst.) And yes huge efforts were made to promote American art post World War II, but I'm not sure what that has to do with art that seeks to record the artist's outrage at war or politics.
Manet's series about the execution of Maximilian, Picasso's Guernica, and Gericault's Raft are all masterpieces, and have been recognized as such, but did the audiences of their day need reminding of the horrors they recorded? Were hearts and minds moved to change an opinion about the government, whether it was Napoleon III's or Francisco Franco's?
Yes, art matters as a history of what the times either cared about or loathed. My point was simply that it's not often very good as propaganda, no matter what your politics.
*also records precise facts....
I was deeply moved by the napalmed girl. Jacob Landau in Roosevelt, NJ tried as a printmaker, like Ben Shahn, to make politcal art. He commemorated the Holocaust and John Brown and made a poster for the first Earth Day. I hope his efforts moved some. As a young artist I painted a long abstract mural about the bombing in Vietnam but it gained no traction in its obscure Princeton location. Later I tried to celebrate female peacemakers in the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom but that was a flop in the Philadelphia area. Posters for demonstrations can be an somewhat effective outlet.
Good piece, and we need more attention drawn to this issue. I have drawn much the same conclusion about political art. The artists and the art world get a lot out of it, but the idea that it has any real impact on politics is at best a delusion, at worst a kind of ego-trip on the part of artists. Here's a piece I wrote on the exhibition "Modern Art and Politics in German 1910-1945," which closed today (at the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth). All that German protest art during those war years, and not a shred of evidence that any of it affected the politics.
https://twocoatsofpaint.com/2025/06/art-versus-politics.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=art-versus-politics
Yes, I remember your essay from Two Coats, and I even commented on it. And, yes, so much boffo art in the name of political atrocities but to what effect? I'm just glad a lot of it still survives.