After gardening and paintings, today I'm going to take you back to graphics. Four days ago I showed some of Tamás Vass's works and called the post The Most Amazing Graphics I've Seen, for a good reason. While visiting the exhibition, I was thinking if I've seen any of the artist's work, but I'm not sure. I remember there was a similar graphics once that left m speechless, but I don't know if it was Vass's work or someone else's.
Most of the graphics I saw at the exhibition were absolutely amazing, but there were some works that made me thinking, because the style was very different.
This was the first one that broke the style and made me suspicious. It's called together and the reason I became suspicious was because of the artist combining the image of a young mother holding a child, with construction workers. It reminded me of communist times as this was the style you could see on posters, banners and in magazines. Communist propaganda all over the place, pushing industrialization into everyone's face ad brainwashing at the highest level.
Obviously surviving and making ends meet was not an easy thing for artists, plus someone had to do this works as well. I read in his bio, that he collaborated with quite a few publications right after he started college and had quite a few graphics conforming to the socialist realism's canon, praising communism.
This graphics was made with ink in 1979 and it's called Composition.
Together With You
Made in 1969, similar style.
The Strength Of Steel - 1973
Prometheus - 1976
For those of you who don't know who Prometheus was, here it is:
In Greek mythology, Prometheus (possibly meaning "forethought") is one of the Titans and a god of fire. Prometheus is best known for defying the Olympian gods by stealing fire from them and giving it to humanity in the form of technology, knowledge, and more generally, civilization.
In some versions of the myth, he is also credited with the creation of humanity from clay. Prometheus is known for his intelligence and for being a champion of humankind, and is also generally seen as the author of the human arts and sciences. He is sometimes presented as the father of Deucalion, the hero of the flood story. source
Despite reminding me of communist style, this was quite interesting. An industrial depiction of Prometheus I'd say. Most likely you won't see any similar depiction of Prometheus out there. I would not hang it on my wall, but I like the idea.
Revenge - 1969
This was quite confusing to be honest and with this, the communist style artworks ended.
In The Shadow Of Death - 1969
The theme is pretty depressing as all you can see here is heads and skulls, but the work is an exceptional one.
Someone mentioned in my last post, that Vass's works are dark and depressing. The user was not wrong and there was a good reason why his works are not cheerful. There was a period when his works were excluded from competitions and he was even banned from entering group exhibitions. He was leading a self destructive life and this type of rejection had a huge impact on his health.
Even though he was not the only artist in history to be part of such treatment, rejection is never easy to process and deal with it. Most likely had a huge impact on his graphics style and this is why we see so many artworks that has as theme death.
Our Fathers - 1981
I can't say this is related to communism, but it's tied to work life before the war (I think), before machines took over the work men used to do. Yes, it's not a bright, cheerful work, but it's brilliant in my eyes. Look at the details, look at how nicely the artist covered what happened during the day.
This very talented artist only lived 46 years and he unfortunately never got to experience freedom. Freedom of movement, freedom of expression, freedom in art and any kind of freedom. He died two years before the country was freed of the communist regime (in theory). It's a tragedy, a huge one. Imagine what he could have created he would lived another 30 years in freedom.
If you're a newbie, you may want to check out these guides:
