Subversive Art: Weapon of the People

Art serves many purposes in society, not the least of which is conveyance of messages meant to persuade. If it is created and promoted by those in political power, it is called patriotic. If it is created and promoted by those who dissent, it is called subversive. Both are propaganda, with the primary differences lying not only in the messages themselves, but also in the means of dispersal. Therefore any assessment of the effectiveness of subversive art must take into account the very reason it exists – to counter those who have more power, and therefore more means of dissemination at their disposal. Subversive art must therefore not only carry a strong message, it must overcome well-financed efforts to dispute its validity. So if subversive art, in whatever form, prevails, it is an expression of both great artistic power and strength of message. And nowhere is the contrast between opposing forces of propaganda more evident than in times of war.

For example, as World War One began there was the usual flag-waving hurrahs of honor and glory to be gained for man and country, and young men by the thousands marched off to face the enemy amid glowing poems, posters and even early films. But soon another message emerged, coming back from the battlefields where the worst of war was being experienced by young people sent to the slaughter. Siegfried Sassoon was one of many soldier-poets who attacked the lunacy of war in verse, in his case with satirical poetry.


Suicide in the Trenches

I knew a simple soldier boy

Who grinned at life in empty joy,

Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,

And whistled early with the lark.

In winter trenches, cowed and glum,

With crumps and lice and lack of rum,

He put a bullet through his brain.

No one spoke of him again.

     .     .     .     .

You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye

Who cheer when soldier lads march by,

Sneak home and pray you'll never know

The hell where youth and laughter go.

The Survivors

NO doubt they'll soon get well; the shock and strain

  Have caused their stammering, disconnected talk.

Of course they're 'longing to go out again,'--

  These boys with old, scared faces, learning to walk.

They'll soon forget their haunted nights; their cowed

  Subjection to the ghosts of friends who died,--

Their dreams that drip with murder; and they'll be proud

  Of glorious war that shatter'd all their pride...

Men who went out to battle, grim and glad;

Children, with eyes that hate you, broken and mad.

Sassoon was a war hero, known in the trenches as "Mad Jack" for his fearlessness, brought on, some speculated, by his horror at the war. Wounded, he returned to Britain, where he became a mentor to Wilfred Owen, whose iconic poem "Dulce Et Decorum Est" provided another subversive, anti-war message, part of increasing public awareness that modern warfare was anything but noble, as machines and chemicals deepened the already hideous aspects of deadly warfare. The scourge of mustard gas immortalized by Owen was also depicted in paintings, such as “Gassed” by John Singer Sargent.

"Gassed" by John Singer Sargent, March 1919

Public outcry over the use of chemical gasses was strong enough that it was officially outlawed in the Armistice agreement of 1925 ("official" being the operant word here - in actuality it was far from reality, as the Vietnam War and Agent Orange later proved). Sassoon grew increasingly angry at the human costs of war, and eventually sent a letter to his commanding officer titled "Finished with the War: A Soldier's Declaration," which was picked up by the press and also read in Parliament, prompting calls of treason. Instead, Sassoon was sent to a hospital to be treated for "neurasthenia," the WWI version of Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome. 

It is apparent that the combination of the very real casualties of war coupled with artistic response to it made at the very least a difference in how war was perceived. Sadly it did not prevent further "world" wars, but at least the young men called to serve could potentially enter their service more aware of the realities they were to face, and war itself wore a different face.

"The Fellowship of Death," London War Memorial

Whether or not one piece of art, be it poetry, painting, sculpture, prose, film - whatever - can effectively bring about political change would be a difficult theorem to prove. However, cumulatively, and coupled with a wide array of activities of dissent, it is possible that public opinion, and thus the course of history, can be changed. An example of that is, once again, related to warfare, and the protests of the Vietnam War.

Protest of the Vietnam War took place across a wide swath of the arts, led primarily by young people at the outset, but soon joined by others of all ages and walks of life. The most effective means of communicative art during the Vietnam protest era (and it was a long one) was music. Through wave after wave of anti-war songs, a movement gained a soundtrack, and it is to those songs that change began, swelled, and overcame, helping to end the war. 

Some of the songs were generically anti-war, like Pete Seeger’s “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1y2SIIeqy34 , Bob Dylan’s “The Times They are a-Changin’” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCWdCKPtnYE or “Blowing in the Wind” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWwgrjjIMXA. But the movement also included increasingly specific songs like Phil Och’s “I Aint’ Marchin’ Any More” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5pgrKSwFJE, performed at the Chicago Democratic National Convention in 1968 while some members of the audience burned their draft cards; Barry McGuire’s “Eve of Destruction” http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=_d8C4AIFgUg;  Edwin Star’s “War” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntLsElbW9Xo, and Buffy Sainte Marie’s poem and song, “The Universal Soldier” http://www.youtube.com/watchv=VGWsGyNsw00. The subversive, anti-war cries grew more unified, and were immortalized at the iconic music festival "Woodstock" in 1969, when Country Joe McDonald’s “Feel Like I'm Fixing to Die Rag” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hs4s7LrAuMo became an anthem for the insanity of the war.  Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young’s “Ohio” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnOoNM0U6oc, written in response to the shootings by the National Guard of student protesters at Kent State University in Ohio, deepened the rift between subversive, anti-war activists and the warring Republic. Public opinion for the former was increasingly mobilized, and a generation learned how to be subversive with music ringing in their ears. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnnLrmboOYE

So the answer to the question Robert Hughes asked, in "Shock of the New" - "Can art be subversive? (Can it cause political change?)" - is yes. An individual piece of work may have   an overtly negligible effect, but cumulatively, artists can create powerfully subversive forces that alter the course of human events, one paint stroke or note at a time.