Poem: "Every Work of Art Is Protest"
Dec. 25th, 2021 05:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysabetwordsmithThis poem came out of the March 2, 2021 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by a prompt from erulisse. It also fills the "Sword" square in my 3-1-21 card for the Celtic Bingo Fest. This poem has been sponsored by a pool with fuzzyred, ng_moonmoth, janetmiles, and edorfaus. It belongs to the series Arts and Crafts America.
"Every Work of Art Is Protest"
[1500s to 1920s]
The pen is mightier
than the sword, and
the paintbrush most of all,
for words can only be read by
those who have learned literacy,
but art can be seen by everyone.
The history of protest art is
the history of the world itself,
because in the largest sense,
every work of art is protest.
This is what has shaped
the course of civilization
since the first artist dragged
wayward fingers through cave mud.
In the early 1500s, the Reformation
took advantage of newly available ways
to duplicate and distribute broadsides,
both with text and with illustrations.
They used protest art to raise
awareness of the Church's problems
and demand changes for the better.
In fact, the movement became known
as Protestantism, and its artwork
helped fight against the backlash
during the Counter-Reformation,
defending gains in reading and
education, welfare programs,
and respect for diversity.
During the French Revolution,
artists used neo-classical methods
to show that their own heroes
were every bit as worthy as
those of Greco-Roman history.
They created the sense of
living in a modern age of heroes.
Depicted as heroes, more people
behaved heroically, spreading
the ideals of equality farther
across the reach of Europe.
In the 1920s, the Dadaists
tore into magazines and
newspapers to make collage,
arguing about the absurdity
of war-torn humanity and
trying to discourage people
from making the reparations
so onerous that Germany
would be bound to rebel.
Every piece of protest art
became a lever that
pushed civilization
slowly but steadily
down a better path.
* * *
Notes:
"In the largest sense, every work of art is protest ... A lullaby is a propaganda song and any three-year-old knows it ... A hymn is a controversial song - sing one in the wrong church: you'll find out ..."
— Pete Seeger
Protest art is the creative works produced by activists and social movements. It is a traditional means of communication, utilized by a cross section of collectives and the state to inform and persuade citizens. Protest art helps arouse base emotions in their audiences, and in return may increase the climate of tension and create new opportunities to dissent. Since art, unlike other forms of dissent, take few financial resources, less financially able groups and parties can rely more on performance art and street art as an affordable tactic.
In prehistoric art, finger flutings are lines that fingers leave on a soft surface. Considered a form of cave painting, they occur in caves throughout southern Australia, New Guinea, and southwestern Europe, and were presumably made over a considerable time span including some or all of the Upper Paleolithic. Most are not obvious figures or symbols but, rather, appear to many observers as enigmatic lines. They are also called tracés digitaux or finger tracings and (though these terms are also in part interpretative) meanders, macaroni, and serpentines. The term finger fluting was coined by Robert Bednarik.
Generally they are made in a substance called moonmilk. Sometimes they are made through a thin clay film into moonmilk underneath or perhaps just into clay.
Protest!: A History of Social and Political Protest Graphics
by Liz McQuiston
An authoritative, richly illustrated history of six centuries of global protest art
Throughout history, artists and citizens have turned to protest art as a means of demonstrating social and political discontent. From the earliest broadsheets in the 1500s to engravings, photolithographs, prints, posters, murals, graffiti, and political cartoons, these endlessly inventive graphic forms have symbolized and spurred on power struggles, rebellions, spirited causes, and calls to arms. Spanning continents and centuries, Protest! presents a major new chronological look at protest graphics.
Beginning in the Reformation, when printed visual matter was first produced in multiples, Liz McQuiston follows the iconic images that have accompanied movements and events around the world.
The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in particular to papal authority, arising from what were perceived to be errors, abuses, and discrepancies by the Catholic Church.
The Counter-Reformation (Latin: Contrareformatio), also called the Catholic Reformation (Latin: Reformatio Catholica) or the Catholic Revival, was the period of Catholic resurgence that was initiated in response to the Protestant Reformation. It began with the Council of Trent (1545–1563) and largely ended with the conclusion of the European wars of religion in 1648. Initiated to address the effects of the Protestant Reformation, the Counter-Reformation was a comprehensive effort composed of apologetic and polemical documents and ecclesiastical configuration as decreed by the Council of Trent.
The French Revolution (French: Révolution française [ʁevɔlysjɔ̃ fʁɑ̃sɛːz]) refers to the period that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended in November 1799 with the formation of the French Consulate. Many of its ideas are considered fundamental principles of Western liberal democracy.
[---8<---]
Many Revolutionary symbols such as La Marseillaise and phrases like Liberté, égalité, fraternité reappeared in other revolts, such as the 1917 Russian Revolution. Over the next two centuries, its key principles like equality would inspire campaigns for the abolition of slavery and universal suffrage. Its values and institutions dominate French politics to this day, and many historians regard the Revolution as one of the most important events in recent history.
“The French Revolution gave an enormous impulse to the painting of heroic subjects,” Gombrich writes. “The leading artist of this neo-classical style was the painter Jacques-Louis David (1748 – 1825), who was the ‘official artist’ of the Revolutionary Government.
David and his fellow revolutionaries “felt they were living in heroic times, and that the events of their own years were just as worthy of the painter’s attention as the episodes of Greek and Roman history.”
David painted Marat as a martyr who had died for his cause. This was no simple task, as the Frenchman had not died on the battlefield, but while bathing.
The Dadaists
Zurich-Based European Political Absurdists
In the 1920s, the Dadaists founded nightclub Cabaret Voltaire as a venue for experimental and political performance art. They also invented collage as an affordable medium. They used collage to appropriate from newspapers in reaction to World War I. The group webbed off into several disciplines: sculptors, designers, performers and poets. They united under the absurdity of war-torn humanity, and made full force unapologetic reactionary art. Some of the most influential Dadaist include Hannah Höch, Tristan Tzara, Marcel Duchamp, Francis Picabia, and Kurt Schwitters.
erulisse. It also fills the "Sword" square in my 3-1-21 card for the Celtic Bingo Fest. This poem has been sponsored by a pool with fuzzyred, ng_moonmoth, janetmiles, and edorfaus. It belongs to the series Arts and Crafts America."Every Work of Art Is Protest"
[1500s to 1920s]
The pen is mightier
than the sword, and
the paintbrush most of all,
for words can only be read by
those who have learned literacy,
but art can be seen by everyone.
The history of protest art is
the history of the world itself,
because in the largest sense,
every work of art is protest.
This is what has shaped
the course of civilization
since the first artist dragged
wayward fingers through cave mud.
In the early 1500s, the Reformation
took advantage of newly available ways
to duplicate and distribute broadsides,
both with text and with illustrations.
They used protest art to raise
awareness of the Church's problems
and demand changes for the better.
In fact, the movement became known
as Protestantism, and its artwork
helped fight against the backlash
during the Counter-Reformation,
defending gains in reading and
education, welfare programs,
and respect for diversity.
During the French Revolution,
artists used neo-classical methods
to show that their own heroes
were every bit as worthy as
those of Greco-Roman history.
They created the sense of
living in a modern age of heroes.
Depicted as heroes, more people
behaved heroically, spreading
the ideals of equality farther
across the reach of Europe.
In the 1920s, the Dadaists
tore into magazines and
newspapers to make collage,
arguing about the absurdity
of war-torn humanity and
trying to discourage people
from making the reparations
so onerous that Germany
would be bound to rebel.
Every piece of protest art
became a lever that
pushed civilization
slowly but steadily
down a better path.
* * *
Notes:
"In the largest sense, every work of art is protest ... A lullaby is a propaganda song and any three-year-old knows it ... A hymn is a controversial song - sing one in the wrong church: you'll find out ..."
— Pete Seeger
Protest art is the creative works produced by activists and social movements. It is a traditional means of communication, utilized by a cross section of collectives and the state to inform and persuade citizens. Protest art helps arouse base emotions in their audiences, and in return may increase the climate of tension and create new opportunities to dissent. Since art, unlike other forms of dissent, take few financial resources, less financially able groups and parties can rely more on performance art and street art as an affordable tactic.
In prehistoric art, finger flutings are lines that fingers leave on a soft surface. Considered a form of cave painting, they occur in caves throughout southern Australia, New Guinea, and southwestern Europe, and were presumably made over a considerable time span including some or all of the Upper Paleolithic. Most are not obvious figures or symbols but, rather, appear to many observers as enigmatic lines. They are also called tracés digitaux or finger tracings and (though these terms are also in part interpretative) meanders, macaroni, and serpentines. The term finger fluting was coined by Robert Bednarik.
Generally they are made in a substance called moonmilk. Sometimes they are made through a thin clay film into moonmilk underneath or perhaps just into clay.
Protest!: A History of Social and Political Protest Graphics
by Liz McQuiston
An authoritative, richly illustrated history of six centuries of global protest art
Throughout history, artists and citizens have turned to protest art as a means of demonstrating social and political discontent. From the earliest broadsheets in the 1500s to engravings, photolithographs, prints, posters, murals, graffiti, and political cartoons, these endlessly inventive graphic forms have symbolized and spurred on power struggles, rebellions, spirited causes, and calls to arms. Spanning continents and centuries, Protest! presents a major new chronological look at protest graphics.
Beginning in the Reformation, when printed visual matter was first produced in multiples, Liz McQuiston follows the iconic images that have accompanied movements and events around the world.
The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in particular to papal authority, arising from what were perceived to be errors, abuses, and discrepancies by the Catholic Church.
The Counter-Reformation (Latin: Contrareformatio), also called the Catholic Reformation (Latin: Reformatio Catholica) or the Catholic Revival, was the period of Catholic resurgence that was initiated in response to the Protestant Reformation. It began with the Council of Trent (1545–1563) and largely ended with the conclusion of the European wars of religion in 1648. Initiated to address the effects of the Protestant Reformation, the Counter-Reformation was a comprehensive effort composed of apologetic and polemical documents and ecclesiastical configuration as decreed by the Council of Trent.
The French Revolution (French: Révolution française [ʁevɔlysjɔ̃ fʁɑ̃sɛːz]) refers to the period that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended in November 1799 with the formation of the French Consulate. Many of its ideas are considered fundamental principles of Western liberal democracy.
[---8<---]
Many Revolutionary symbols such as La Marseillaise and phrases like Liberté, égalité, fraternité reappeared in other revolts, such as the 1917 Russian Revolution. Over the next two centuries, its key principles like equality would inspire campaigns for the abolition of slavery and universal suffrage. Its values and institutions dominate French politics to this day, and many historians regard the Revolution as one of the most important events in recent history.
“The French Revolution gave an enormous impulse to the painting of heroic subjects,” Gombrich writes. “The leading artist of this neo-classical style was the painter Jacques-Louis David (1748 – 1825), who was the ‘official artist’ of the Revolutionary Government.
David and his fellow revolutionaries “felt they were living in heroic times, and that the events of their own years were just as worthy of the painter’s attention as the episodes of Greek and Roman history.”
David painted Marat as a martyr who had died for his cause. This was no simple task, as the Frenchman had not died on the battlefield, but while bathing.
The Dadaists
Zurich-Based European Political Absurdists
In the 1920s, the Dadaists founded nightclub Cabaret Voltaire as a venue for experimental and political performance art. They also invented collage as an affordable medium. They used collage to appropriate from newspapers in reaction to World War I. The group webbed off into several disciplines: sculptors, designers, performers and poets. They united under the absurdity of war-torn humanity, and made full force unapologetic reactionary art. Some of the most influential Dadaist include Hannah Höch, Tristan Tzara, Marcel Duchamp, Francis Picabia, and Kurt Schwitters.
