By Aderline Ng

When talking about symbol, it reminds me of a movie that I watched a few months ago, called Arrival. In the movie, the aliens have their own writing system which different with english. The circle that they wrote is just like a picture that tells a story or a sentences. It makes me think that a propaganda art piece is similar with the aliens writing system. It contains messages in a picture. Arrival in 2016 Symbol form in our mind based on our culture. In our culture, we know that we should stop when red light appear and go when it turns to green light. What we observed from our environment will form our mindset and impression on something. Just like someone might feel uncomfortable for eating raw meat because rarely happen in our culture.  Susanne Langer, a philosopher said that art can create the symbolic form of human feelings and emotions (Feeling and Form, 1953). So, “The Korean War” shows the bad impression towards the people in China, might make them feel tha...

Art is powerful. R.G Collingwood said that the best art makes us interact with the world,(The Principles of Art, 1975). Not only showing the imaginary,  art also shows the reality of life. Most of the propaganda art shows how people suffering in the war and this is things that happening in that period.  In “The Korean War” poster, it shows the general from the USA force, killing the woman and the baby. This can fit with one of the points that state in the assignment brief,binary opposition. One of them has high power, and another side are 2 civil that can’t prevent any attacked. It’s not only shows the confrontation between the man and woman but also the powerful country and the weak country. And this also reflects how the real world works. When I was reading a post written by Kevin and Lazara (2019) which publish at BBC News website, the person they interview, Weiping Qin, tells them that the anger of Chinese people are not manufactured by the political system but the ...

Based on a concept from Charles Cooley in his book, Social Organization: A Study of the Larger Mind (1909), a social can be classified into few groups and secondary groups is a big group with a lot of  people, gather for a same goal or certain purpose. Most of them gather together to get some benefit and they are less connected on emotion factor, unless someone affected their benefit.  Secondary groups might can represent the relationship between Soviet Union, China and North Korea before the happening of Sino-Sovient split . Their relationship is just like the- colleag ue -relationship. Although they hold their hands together, sometimes they have   differences and arguments. But when someone has affected them, they will join hands to fight against the enemies.  When the Korean War happened, China sent their force to North Korea for the war. Inside China, they use the media to make people have a bad impression on the USA and let them beware because China ...

From what I observed from my history of art class and online, most of the lesson and website talk about western art more than asian art. When I’m searching a propaganda art for my assignment, I found an article by Claire Stokoe (2010) had introduced 51 propaganda poster, include 47 poster from western countries and 4 poster from asian countries. When I was reading the article, I did not expect that I will see any asian propaganda poster. Of course, propaganda poster is also an unfamiliar word for me who raise in Chinese culture society, often glance on chinese-based forum and have a group of China friends. When I read until the lower part, there are 3 posters from China and 1 from Vietnam. For me, this is interesting because this poster is related to North Korea and the United State of America.  The Korean War, Xu Ling (徐灵),ca. 1950,The Chinese people absolutely cannot condone the encroachment of other countries, and cannot listen to whatever Imperialist who thinks that it c...

When talking about propaganda art, the first propaganda art pop-up in my mind are those vintage posters that painted workers, soldiers and farmers match with a line of words, slogan or phrase. And  sometimes, the politicians are also appear on those posters. Although I did not saw those posters in real life before but those China propaganda posters did appeared in dramas, movies or even on social media network when I was searching for some chinese art on chinese forum and social network, especially on China-based forum and social media network.  In the past, I wonder why there are posters and slogan that hanging or painting all around the streets and buildings. After known that the literacy rate of China is around 20% in 1950 when the People's Republic of China was newly established ( Ted Plafker, 2001). The government wants to spread their goals and publicize their ideologi to the people who did not know a lot of words and reading. So they might think that using poster w...

When talking about modern art, a phrase that associated by Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe’s Dogma, ‘Less is More’, originally from Andrea del Sarto by an English poet, Robert Browning. Artist and designer in that era break away from the previous technique and ideas from the past and try to establish style that has huge different with the past (Gombrich, 1958, p. 419 ). Ludwig Mies form his own style in the industry of architectural, which makes him become the representative and icon of modern architecture. Seagram Building is one of his iconic works, with glass wall and steel frame create a clean and clear structure and exterior. ‘Less is more’ has shown on the exterior of this building and become the reference of an office building all around the world in the future.   Image 1: Seagram Building by Ludwig Mies Der Rohe's Dogma Another phrase, ‘Less is a bore’ by Robert Venturi (1966 ,p. 17), is often used in architectural industry in the period of po...