The biography of John Heartfield gave a great amount of insight into what shaped him as an artist, and I would say what shaped him as an activist for the majority of his life. Looking at his experiences starting at a very young age, he had a tumultuous childhood and adulthood, fleeing from the reaches of the Nazi party and being questioned for his nationality in other countries. For most people, this would be a life full of fear- fear of ostracism, fear of authority. And what's fascinating is that Heartfield somehow created out of this fear a creative rebellion of photomontages that mocked and belittled Hitler, and drew ugly truths out of the men who wage war upon each other.
Among his works, I especially was moved by his "Fathers and Sons" piece made in 1924, the 10th anniversary of WWI. His statement is literally the reality and aftermath of war; skeletons. Millions of people dead, and for whom, or what? The work I chose below is by Francois Robert, and I was reminded of his series of photographs called "The Bones of War" when I saw Heartfield's piece. The structure of the human bones into a tank is making a very strong, obvious statement about war: there may be expensive tanks and machine guns, but at the end of the day it's the human lives that pay the highest cost.
I also was very intrigued by what led Heartfield to create the kind of art that he has become famous for. His childhood, his upbringing, and his overall life experiennces seem to have had a clear impact on the art he created. Also, thank you Annie for including this image. It actually gave me chills. I plan on looking into Francois Robert now!
ReplyDeleteI like the pictures you chose. It is very similar to the kinds of messages that Heartfield tries to portray. The message is very strong by putting bones together in the shape of a tank he is really making people think about how intertwined the two really are. There is no positive way of interpreting these pictures because of the negativity the tanks portray.
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