PROPAGANDA

 
IMAGERY has become a big thing, or so it seems, based on what we are hearing from social media to pay TV but apart from its modern pervasivness maybe it has always been a big thing. What did Mark Anthony know when he decided to present to the people of Rome the bloodied body of Julius Caesar? He asked them, "Were they not all honourable men?". Things looked bad for the conspirators from that moment on.

Why did someone call Jacques Louis David a master propagandist? Imagine how else we would picture the killing of Marat apart from JLD's sparse lonely rendering of a bathtub scene. Quite different the painting below in its intent and look but it too is a very powerful scene:

'Oath of the Horatii', 1784, now resides at the Louvre. It shows the three Horatii brothers swearing an oath of loyalty to the city of Rome to their father. To avoid an all out war, they had volunteered to engage in a duel three brothers from the rival city of Alba Longa. The Horatii brothers will win but two of them will be killed. The ladies are distraught in anticipating their eventual losses. As one who feels an allegiance to this ancient city, one cannot help but love its mythical past. I am moved. The propaganda works but only insofar as loyalties a priori are poised beyond the susceptibility to persuasion. The subject of Nazi propaganda was actually the fatherland. The pretext is the key, yet pictorial mastery is essential in the transmission of thought. Look at the chaps as they raise their muscle bound arms in salute, two with the left and one with the right. Look at the amazing costumes on all the characters. Nice floor as well.