Political Art – Does it make a Difference?

For an artist, it isn’t enough to envision, create, and wallow in paint up to your elbows. You have to read about art. Indulge your muse. Suspend your free time thumbing through art magazines to expand your knowledge. You have to scour what’s out there for knowledge and inspiration.

I’ve been doing just that by reading B.A. Shapiro’s latest novel “The Muralist.” Now I can see her in person on Tuesday, January 12 at the Alliance for the Arts in Fort Myers. Shapiro will be there in person to sign her new book and discuss its plot and characters with attendees.

"From the author of the New York Times bestseller The Art Forger comes a thrilling new novel of art, history, love, and politics that traces the life and mysterious disappearance of a brilliant young artist on the eve of World War II."

The book keeps me turning pages. Of course, it’s about a time period that has always intrigued me, and about the horrors that engulfed the entire world; but especially the Jewish people. Hitler and his minions hated, pursued, and incinerated millions of Jewish victims.


Shapiro not only covers the history well, but she knows art which makes the book that much more important on your lists of “must read.”

Many artists through the centuries have made political statements through their art, but most have avoided it as being too “in your face” or detrimental to their personal success. Some brave pioneers used art as a platform to voice their own strong feelings and to influence their audiences.

"Vik Muniz Photographer and mixed-media artist best known for repurposing everyday materials for intricate and heavily layered re-creations of canonical artworks. Muniz works in a range of media, from trash to peanut butter and jelly, the latter used to recreate Warhol’s famous Double Mona Lisa. 

"Layered appropriation is a consistent theme in Muniz’s work: in 2008, he undertook a large-scale project in Brazil, photographing trash-pickers as figures from emblematic   paintings, such as Jacques-Louis David’s “Neoclassical Death of Marat, and then recreating the photographs in large-scale arrangements of trash. The project was documented in the 2010 film Waste Land in an attempt to raise awareness for urban poverty. Muniz explained the work as a “step away from the realm of fine art,” wanting instead to “change the lives of people with the same materials they deal with every day.”

Others, like Thomas Hart Benton, passionately document history. War correspondents and artists fall into this category. This is why some people become angry when others in later generations wish to discredit or discard offensive images that were an actual part of history. Once we destroy history, we chip away at our own identities. History should stand, whether we like it or not.

Slavery is abhorrent to us now. It is a part of our history that we’re ashamed of and wish hadn't happened. But we can learn from our mistakes and vow never to make the same ones again. We can learn from the horrors of Hitler. The German people would like to bury this part of their past, but they haven’t. We and they must keep even the horrors of our past so that later generations will remember and perhaps be saved from repeating the same mistakes.

Our country seems intent on following in Europe’s footsteps. But, instead, we should learn from them:

Socialism has brought financial ruin. A flood of refugees has changed the face of many major cities across the globe.

The whole world is teetering on the brink of disaster. We would be fools to ignore what has happened and think we know best, that it can’t happen here because we’re just too damn smart.

All it takes is a few concessions here, a blind eye there, a white lie behind closed doors, and a willingness to ignore the obvious right in front of our collective noses.


If an artist or a writer can awaken us to the truth, all the better.

(Charles McNaughton, artist -- and below)

Man’s Inhumanity to Man – When Power Corrupts

"With these Hands -- Wonder" Oil on acrylic underpainting

It's the 4th of July; Independence Day, and I'm going to repeat a blog in memory of the veterans and troops throughout the years who have fought for our freedom. My inspiration came from reading “Unbroken; a World War II Story of Survival,” by Laura Hillenbrand. In that blog, I mentioned that it was hard for me to read more than a few chapters a day. 

The material is so raw, so cruel and emotional that I had to quit reading in order to regain my composure. I’m not a crier; people who know me know that I don’t cry easily, especially in front of others. But I will tell you this. While reading this book, my eyes filled with tears and my heart experienced the agony of shared empathy.

As POWs, these men tried to retain their dignity as human beings under cruel and inhumane circumstances. Struggling to maintain scraps of freedom their defiance kept them going. Their bodies would be starved and beaten. They would be forced into submission, but their souls, their attitudes and minds would soar above on silent prayers of hope and endurance.

Their struggles reminded me of this passage from the Book of Job in the Bible: “I will maintain my righteousness and never let go of it. My conscience will not reproach me as long as I live.” (Job 27:6 NIV)

Educators always refer to the Jewish Holocaust under Hitler as the worst example in history of human degradation and deprivation. And well they should. But its relevance has been broadcast on the wings of a political agenda labeled “Anti-Semitism.” Yet the fact that thousands and millions of Soldiers suffered under the tyrannical hands of the Japanese in the brutal POW camps is little known. Why? Because the power of the elite has deemed America an “Imperialist” country and these facts do not suit their political agenda.

(first great granddaughter)

I went to Wickipedia hoping to find some historical and accurate information. To my surprise their main focus was on the Japanese Internment Camps in the US and Japanese POWs where the prisoners were treated humanely compared to the treatment of US prisoners in Japanese camps. This is how history has been manipulated for political purposes.

Most of the US and Allied POWs in Japan died from starvation. They became slave labor and worked long hours on rice or seaweed broth having neither protein nor vegetables. They suffered preventable diseases such as beriberi and scurvy. These valiant men helped each other, protected each other; and when they could, shared what little food they had in order to keep their buddies alive. 

“Courage is fear that has said its prayers,” Karl Barth a theologian of the 20^th century once said. Those who survived were sometimes hourly on their knees.

These prisoners were beaten daily, beaten for pleasure, and if they were officers or men of stature beaten extensively. They were coverless and barefoot in winter; their bodies covered only with shreds of cloth that were once the clothing they wore when captured. International law regarding Prisoners of War was ignored. The Red Cross dropped food supplies in the camps, but the Japanese guards horded them for themselves or sold them on the black market.

Link for historical story: http://www.stripes.com/military-life/taiwan-horrors-of-japanese-pow-camps-revealed-to-visitors-at-kinkaseki-1.218978

Sadly, their suffering and torture in the POW camps was overshadowed by the “bomb” that finally made Japan stand still. How do you stop a tyrant? How do you bring down the planes raining bombs on your own soil and stop an aggressive enemy intent on conquering the world? How do you stop a bully with an arsenal who is out to cleanse the world of unwanted races, ethnicities, or religions? How do you stop a mad man, a dictator from implementing his hatred?

During the course of the war, Japanese civilians also suffered as their country began to collapse at war’s end. A quote from the book states: “Near the end of the war, the civilians (not the guards or hierarchy) were in shocking conditions. The limbs of the adults were grotesquely swollen from beriberi; a condition the POWs knew well. Their children were emaciated…But Japan was a long way from giving up.”

The Japanese considered “surrender” shameful, and they were prepared to fight to the end at all costs. They had also decided that no prisoners would be released to their allied forces. They intended to kill every last one. Hundreds of POWs were shot and dumped in the nearby jungles. There were few options open to the POWs for escape or rescue.

There’s another side to the story. What enemy would warn their adversary of an upcoming attack? American B29s “showered leaflets over 35 Japanese cities warning civilians of coming bombings and urging them to warn others and to evacuate. “But the Japanese authorities punished those who had leaflets or who gave them to their neighbors and tried to warn them. Two of the cities warned and mentioned in the leaflets were Hiroshima and Nagasaki.”

Today, my blog is long. This war, this book has deeply affected me. I am incensed by “man’s inhumanity to man.” Sadly, those who served our country, who suffered and endured, were forgotten to satisfy a contemporary ideology intent on promoting equality, diversity and inclusion. It has taken America several decades to honor those who served in the World War II arena. There are very few of them who still remain.

To add insult to injury, those surviving American heroes were insulted once again when the “mock government shut-down” denied them passage into the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C. that was built specifically to honor them. 

I am ashamed of our leaders in Washington. I am outraged at how they toy with our lives and tinker with the greatest thing we have going for us: our Constitution. May God bless America. She needs it now more than ever!