Photography and the dictators

[akptc]

I picked up an old book when I was in Poland .... I got a kick out of the photos comparing the capitalist home to the communist home. One was all nice and orderly and modern, and one was a shack.. You can imagine which they said the capitalist one was 😛 It was all black and white, but they sure did use a lot of Red for lettering and titles and so forth! And naturally a biiiiig picture of Stalin on the first few pages.

I think I still have that book somewhere! 😀 A little OT but I recall propping up three sides of my broken bed 1st year of college with shiny volumes of impeccably printed, "leather" bound ravings of Lenin... one could buy a dozen of them for less than a pack of smokes from a gov bookstore. Back to photography, I am starting to think that maybe part of the reason my pics are generally boring and orderly is having grown up looking at social-realism... 😕

 

[drmatthes]

As far as art and politics is concerned, one must take into account the role of artists in society in general.

Ancient art like in India, China, Greece, Middle and South America, served a religious role from the beginning (you can trace this back to the Cro-Magnon caves with their wall paintings and statuettes) that had a strong connection with political power - in fact, religious and political power were essentially the same at that time (an ideal dictatorships still are keeping).

Not much later, let's say in the Bronze Age for example, there also came the need for representative and decorative art in the palaces. The legend of King Minos is stating that he employed Daidalos and his son Ikaros as court artists and inventors at his palace at Knossos.

The Romans made extensive use of imperial architecture and statues to celebrate the power of their rulers and impress the ordinary people, a tendency that also persists until today.

So, the basic connection between art and politics is an essential one within any human society, always in use by those in power. In this context, propaganda seems just an extreme form of public regime representation with strong pseudo-religious connotations in dictatorships - but certainly not only in dictatorships.

You can feel this with Hitler and Albert Speer - but when the new government buildings were erected in Berlin in the past decade, decisions had to be made about styles, architecture, and representative art as well, as they had to be made for the construction of Brazilia, the new capital by Costa and Niemeyer, and likewise for any capital in the world.

The left-wing artist seems to me a phenomenon with its roots in Italian renaissance. You need an advanced civil society first, to make at least some artists independent of pure government orders, that is, to enable them of working on a free basis, together with new ideas of humanity, a thread that can be followed over the age of enlightenment to the revolutions of the 18th to the 20th century - so finally the working masses would be having their art, too, as it was strongly pushed by the followers of Karl Marx that there had to be a connection between the working class and the intelligentsia.

That tendency of democratizing art was well underway when photography came up in 1839. The invention and patents of the process were even sold to the French State right in the beginning.

If you take these clues together, you have it all: the government interests, the propaganda, the conservative and the progressive tendencies.

It is this field of tension in which photography is constantly standing.


Jesko

_____________________

2006 AD
800 yrs Dresden
80 yrs Zeiss Ikon

 

[RdEoSg]

Have you ever been to http://altphotos.com/ It isn't a Polish site, but for what ever reason it is predominatly Polish photographers. Amazing work by some of them so I have faith!

btw.. My Polish girlfriend says of course you can!

 

[kestas]

🙂
http://www.ljplus.ru/img/s/p/spintronix/saddam.jpg

 

[Peter Klein]

I agree, and offer a couple of examples. Stalin made effective use of cinema, commissioning Sergei Eisenstein to make a number of impressive political films, such as "Potemkin" and "Alexander Nevsky", one or both of which were scored by I. Stravinsky.

Sorry, not Igor Stravinsky. He was living in Paris well before the Russian Revolution, and did not return afterwards. It's Sergei Prokofiev who scored "Alexander Nyevsky," and I believe "Potemkin" also.

If you want an example of a Soviet composer who was both used by the system and also managed to code protests of it into his music, read up on Dmitri Shostakovich.

For a start:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitri_Shostakovich

--Peter

 

[John Robertson]

Nothing changes!! Just watch Blair and Bush on TV. The staged sincere gestures etc... makes me sick!!!

 

[rxmd]

> Can't figure this out really - do you have ideas?

You might want to read Margarita Tupitsyn's The Soviet Photograph, 1924-1937, New Haven: Yale UP, 1996, ISBN 0-300-06450-0.

And take a good look at http://www.borodulincollection.com

Philipp

 

[dexdog]

Sorry, not Igor Stravinsky. He was living in Paris well before the Russian Revolution, and did not return afterwards. It's Sergei Prokofiev who scored "Alexander Nyevsky," and I believe "Potemkin" also.

If you want an example of a Soviet composer who was both used by the system and also managed to code protests of it into his music, read up on Dmitri Shostakovich.

For a start:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitri_Shostakovich

--Peter

Thanks for the correction Peter, it has been quite a few years since I have seen those movies.

 

[dexdog]

Nothing changes!! Just watch Blair and Bush on TV. The staged sincere gestures etc... makes me sick!!!

The big difference is that neither Bush nor Blair have a stranglehold on all media, as did Stalin and Hitler. It was a lot easier to control access to information back in the 1930s.

 

[John Rountree]

No one has mentioned that photographs are usually interpreted as eveidence. If you see it in a photograph it must be real. Governments, advertising agencies, and portrait studios rely and exploit this quaint misconception on a daily basis. Realizing the willingness of most people to accept anything in a photograph as real gives photography a very special prowess, especially in the eyes of those who have a need to manipulate opinion.

 

[VinceC]

>>photographs are usually interpreted as eveidence<<

It seems as though the digital age has made every point-and-shoot photographer aware of how easily images can be manipulated.

 

[John Camp]

Speaking of art and politics (which tend to en up mixed up), what is the root cause for the fact that the art world is inherently left-wing? There are some exceptions of course, but it tends constantly that way...

They're not -- or not, anyway, until Moderism came along in the early 20th century. The painters of the high renaissance worked for Popes, David was a devoted follower of Napolean, Ingres was virulently conservative in everything, many of the Impressionists/post-impressionists were notably conservative, like Degas (an anti-Dreyfusard and probably an anti-Semite) and Cezanne, son of a banker. Gauguin was a stockbroker before he became an artist, and I don't know that he really had any other politics. Whistler and John Singer Sargent considered themselves aristocrats and made most of their money painting other aristocrats. Mary Cassatt came from a very wealthy family. Pissarro was left, and a few other social painters after 1848, including Van Gogh, as far as he had politics. Winslow Homer was conservative, but Thomas Eakins would probably be considered at least a social liberal.

The real identification of artists with the left came after Picasso, and was an effect of the bohemianism of Paris, when it because a "thing" to shock the squares with life-style and politics. How much is sincere, and how much was a p.r. pose, is uncertain, since the most famous of these artists became enormously rich, and weren't known as great philanthropists. Some, like the Mexican artist David Siqueiros were both extremely left and very sincere; Siqueiros considered his politics more important than his art, and once led an armed attack on Leon Trotsky on behalf of Mexican Stalinists.

Artists, though, don't make very good politicians. As a rule of thumb, the more political the art, the worse it is.

JC

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

Speaking of art and politics (which tend to en up mixed up), what is the root cause for the fact that the art world is inherently left-wing? There are some exceptions of course, but it tends constantly that way...

Stephen Colbert said it best when he said: "truth has a well-known liberal bias" 😉

That said, I strongly disagree that "the art world is inherently left-wing". The "art world" has many fascets, and many citizens. Obscenely wealthy millionaires move "the art world"; I believe most of them would hardly qualify as "left-wing" outside of their own economic circle's eyes. It doesn't mean there aren't some that aren't, but a few exceptions don't define the rule.

Then there are the "starving artists" (obscenely unwealthy?) and the "well-to-do artists". These tend to be "against the establishment", or simply quite contrary (or contrarian). The "establishment" can either be "conservative" or "liberal". Being against a liberal establishment doesn't make you left-wing.

Generally, oppresive governments and societies leave no or little room for questioning anything, and all must do as they dictate (hmm..."dictate"). These tend to be...err...not "liberal" government or societies.

Artists generally have the "thinking" and/or "creative" mode on. Repressive establishments highly discourage (heh -- "discourage" is a nice word) any "thinking" outside their boundaries.

But the world is inherently territorial and oppresive and puts national identity (i.e. "patriotism") or religious subscription above all ("we are right, you are wrong"). So, who's to say the world is inherently "left-wing"?

We're a tough cookie.

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

>>photographs are usually interpreted as eveidence<<

It seems as though the digital age has made every point-and-shoot photographer aware of how easily images can be manipulated.

Manipulated photographs, I say, are evidence of our, let's say, inherent need/want to change the world. Is it right/wrong? The means, the will... life is not a linear formula, much to the dismay of many.

 

[canonetc]

Perhaps the dictatorships viewed photography as more "real" than graphic art.
The proles could look at a photo of Stalin waving (and know it's him), or a graphic poster-art of Stalin waving (and just get an "idea" or impression that it's him). Plus, photography back then was still a "new" technology, so perhaps they used it to show how "advanced" they were.

While photo prints and negatives in the 30's-40's could be altered by cropping or chemical applications to the emulsions, digital today makes it far easier and faster to create believable propaganda. OJ Simpson on the cover of Time, for example. They made his skin look darker than it really is, and thus, more "dangerous", and thus, more "guilty." Just an example; don;t want to start an OJ tangent here.....

Chris
canonetc

 

[Dfin]

All politicians love to control the media,Johnson droped the ball in Vietnam,but Maggie Thatcher/Falklans;Blair,Bush&Howard Iraqi, caught and held it.Hitler/Gerboels were the first and probably the most effective. Only because the medium was so new(Radio/T.V.).Buy your own Radio,only 100Rm or pay it off, a little each week from your pay. With T.V. cathoray tubes there were two types of phosphor, one was blue with a grey border or green with a black border. Guess which one the nazis used, yep, the party was in your front room day and night whether the set was on or off. If it was popular entertainment the party was there hand in glove, of cause the artist knew Nothing, yeah right!!

 

[Dfin]

Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. Winston Churchill!!

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

While photo prints and negatives in the 30's-40's could be altered by cropping or chemical applications to the emulsions, digital today makes it far easier and faster to create believable propaganda.

Very true. Or dictatorships can opt for the easier route: ban any photographs that cast anything about their actions or policies in a bad light. "Ignorance is bliss" can be an effective anti-propaganda.

 

[VinceC]

>>All politicians love to control the media,Johnson droped the ball in Vietnam,<<

The Johnson administration and U.S. Defense Department believed the Vietnam mission was the morally right thing to do (as compared to allowing the country to fall to communists). So they instituted an open-press policy. It's not that they dropped the censorship ball. Rather, they didn't even play the game. They believed they were using openness with the press as a tool to fight dictatorship.

 

[Jocko]

Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. Winston Churchill!!

With the greatest respect, it was actually Samuel Johnson in 1775. The "patriotism" he was refering to was specifically not "love of country" in the modern sense, but "love of the people" - in the sense that the American revolutionaries described themselves as "patriots". Johnson believed that "progressive" or "patriotic" causes were masks used by a preening liberal elite which actually sought to limit all freedom that did not serve its interests - what we would call "political correctness".

Members may recall that he opposed the American Revolution specifically because he believed that its real purpose was to create a state headed by a powerful economic elite posing as champions of freedom, whose real purpose was to limit the traditional rights of individuals, seize the lands occupied by indigenous peoples and create an economy based on black slavery - "How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?"

As an overtly Tory thinker he opposed slavery, racism and European colonialism from a conservative viewpoint. So much for the idea that "truth has a well-known liberal bias".

As to photography and the dictators; in the mid 20th century 35mm photography was closely identified with objectivity and an intimate bond with "modern reality". Both the dominant dictatorial ideologies of the time made the same claim. Two quotes (full citations in Igor Golomstock, "Totalitarian Art", 1990) -

"The more precisely we know and observe the laws of nature and life, the more we follow the will of Providence. The more we comprehend the will of Providence, the greater our success will be" - Martin Bormann

"The more precisely we know and observe the laws of history and the class struggle, the more we follow dialectical materialism. The more we comprehend dialectical materialism, the greater our successes will be" - Josef Stalin.

The Dictators lay claim to the same spurious objectivity as photography. It was a marriage made in heaven.

Ian