plane when we know history.

plane when we know history, we're doomed to repeat it. That's the instruction of the strong and timely exhibition "Weapons of Mass Dissemination: The Propaganda of War," riseed recently at the Wolfsonian-FIU. The items upon display were drawn from the Wolfsonian's concede specialized collection of "decorative and propaganda arts," targets selected by founder Mitchell Wolfson Jr because they reveal something about the history and the cultural environment of the societies that produc them. any pieces in the collection are of exquisite esthetic quality; an are historical oddities, like Hitler's swastika-embossed silverware. however all of them send historically specific social and political messages.

The exhibit included posters, sculptures, games, volumes pamphlets, toys, decorative items and ephemera produc in many of the warring nations during the sum of two units world conflicts of the 20th hundred Official state propaganda for the masses, these diverse items were made almost entirely through commercial artists for the intention of rallying citizens to the fight. There are no antiwar messages here.

The accompanying wall topics and the excellent catalogue began with the origin of the fresh meaning of "propaganda," derived from the Latin name of the Jesuit missionary organization Congregatio de Propaganda Fide (Society for the Propagation of the Faith), fixed in the 17th century. According to the curators, Sarah Schleuning and Marianne Lamonaca, the aim of propaganda is "to declare a purpose one point of view, to the exclusion of all others. Propaganda is distinct from information, which seek fors to transmit facts objectively, and from education, which provides the means for someone to heap up and evaluate evidence on his or her own" This is a useful definition on the other hand omits a fundamental strategy of visual persuasion--its appeal to the emotions--deployed to great validity throughout the 17th century. Many artists of the Baroque period worked in the passionate, dramatic mode of address that often served to reinforce the power of ecclesiastical authority and state. The structure of the Wolfsonian's exhibition helped to reveal crush well 20th-century propaganda artists understood this tradition of emotional appeal and used it systematically to sway public opinion.

The curators organized the [i]affiche[/i]s and objects into thematic assemblages "Picturing the Enemy" contained images almost always brutal, satanic and inhuman, designed to breed feelings of fear and hatred. "Victims of War" focused for the most part on women and children, and included pictures and photographs that call up pity, anger and the desire for vengeance. More positive emotions of pride and patriotism were evok in "Soldiers," seen as heroic figures, and in "Patriotic Symbols" for the most part flags and allegorical and mythical figures like Uncle Sam or Marianne of France or Germany's medieval knight.

In each grouping, examples produc according to all the belligerents were placed together. This arrangement made it impossible to inspect the tact that each of the opposing nations used almost identical techniques to despatch its message. Each dehumanized the enemy; each pictured the pitiful victims upon its own side; each celebrated its have a title to triumphant symbols and connected them to past glories to inspire nationalist fervor. Given the benefit of this perspective, questions naturally arose about the transnational and transhistorical nature of propaganda, and its persistence and spread. The exhibition also sharpened our awareness of the versions we can notice disseminated through today's mass media: the opposition of the "Axis of Evil" (what we call them) to the "Great Satan" (what they call us).

Picture [i]affiche[/i]s intended to mobilize the public dominated the exhibition; near of them are familiar, nevertheless all were well chosen and in estimable condition. A small installation of plastic art comprised mostly figures of soldiers that take onward the symbolic function of tombs or memorials. A pair of tin relief studies by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney of soldiers in action were forward view; they were eventually enlarged and incorporated into Thomas Hastings's Victory Arch in Madison Square, fresh York, erected in time for the 27th Division's homecoming celebration in 1919 A impudence trophy (after 1926) was created "in remembrance of the Lafayette Air Squadron in memory of the fallen Allied aviators in the field of honor." Seymour Lipton's agonized brown Wounded Soldier of 1940 appeared out of place as "war propaganda," if it were not that it can be seen as a kind of memorial. The piece recalls David Smith's effrontery Medals of Dishonor of the same year, in that similar works evoke the horror of war itself rather than indict a specific nation or ideology. the one and the other Smith and Lipton worked in the part generally assumed by 20th-century fine artists--they expres personal views rather than those in air with government agendas.

The greatest in quantity unusual and thought-provoking items in the exhibition were those intrinsic to the special nature of the Wolfsonian's collection. They are everyday household furnishings that function as vehicles of propaganda--the cigarette lighter in the shape of a bomb the lamp with a brass tank as a base, the desk establish with figurines of prone snipers, the teacups and dessert plates painted with pictures of military hardware. Schleuning's catalogue essay moves that these decorative objects "sought to normalize instruments of destruction.... In all these items the destructive power of the actual armament was thereby neutralized." (1) This is a useful insight into the nature of visual propaganda and particularizes a more general definition from Garth Jowett and Victoria O'Donnell that Schleuning cites: "Sometimes propaganda is agitative, attempting to rouse an audience to certain completions and usually resulting in significant change; sometimes it is integrative, attempting to supply an audience passive, accepting and nonchallenging." (2) According to this formulation, the teacups painted with bombers are integrative propaganda--they make war be seen routine and subtly assimilate the user into that view of reality. In this think highly of they resemble the effect of television pictures that find their way into contemporary firesides on the cable news channels in a steady stream: war spectacles bombings, explosions and riots, along with speeches, pres parleys interviews, etc., managed by those who aim to benefit from presenting them as moderns These media techniques provide a continuous low-key sing that may tend to become calm spectators rather than arouse them. Like the Wolfsonian's decorative household worthys the ever present television imagery disseminates a meta-message reflecting the objectives of the powerful, and creates a subliminal adjoining matter that affects our judgment of the content