World War I Art

"The war to end all wars."

Posters were a significant medium of propaganda and visual persuasion in the World War I effort, as there was still little electronic medium to reach people.  Radio was still new and was only newly being used.  Governments needed to recruit armies and boost public morale.  Art was given a social role in politics.  Posters made by opposing sides were quite different:

Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary):

Simple messages were conveyed in the Plakastil style of Lucian Bernhard, while some even went back to the traditional medieval pictoral symbols representing Germanic spirit.

Lucian Bernhard "Frauen!" ,1918

The Allies (France, Russia, Great Britain, US):

Britain & America chose illustrative, literal imagery, protecting traditional values like home and family.  

The most effective British poster during WWI was the widely imitated 1915 military recruiting poster by Alfred Leete showing the British secretary of war directly pointing at the viewer, then imitated by James Montgomery Flagg for an American military recruiting poster featuring Uncle Sam.  Patriotism in the US ran high when entering WWI to "make the world safe for democracy."

On the left is the Alfred Leete poster for military recruiting, 1915;

on the right is James Montgomery Flagg poster for military recruiting, 1917

 

Joseph Leyendecker "effectively captured the American experience and attitudes during the two decades between the world wars”. He combined visual symbols to evoke patriotism.  His career spanned 322 covers for the Saturday Evening Post, his popularity boosted from the war propaganda posters.

Joseph Leyendecker US Navy wartime poster, 1917

Side note:  

Adolph Hilter was an aspiring artist early in his life.  He wrote in his WWI prison memoir Mein Kampf  that the propaganda “should be popular and should adapt its intellectual level to the receptive ability of the least intellectual citizens”.  He felt the posters used by Germany & Austria-Hungary during WWI were “wrongheaded” and that the slogans and illustrations of the Allies were more effective.  He had an eye for visual propoganda, adopting the swastika as the symbol for the Nazi party in the lead up to WW2.  He wanted a uniformed look throughout which would spearhead design innovation sybolism.  Germany had a very successful wartime propaganda campaign during WW2 under Hitler's keen eye and design leadership (Meggs).