Study Task 4

Text Summary

In Design of Dissent the author Tony Kushner talks about how imagery and graphic design is used in times of political upheaval and instability as a weapon, how it can be manipulated to be used and how it works to create great change. Its main example is how in 1769 the miniaturist Gros create the drawing of the archduke in france of the time who had stopped all corn farming to make himself richer and the peasants poorer, this selfish act cause a lot of issues with the society at the time. Gros then uses illustaration to express his opinions and creates a piece that help with the falling of the duke. Kushner analyses his work to see how it achieved this, he picks up the main parts of create a struct that all political imagery should work with.

For good political graphic design to work in a time of need it has to be intelligent, it has to use a sort of wit that make the masses laugh as well as understand it. It has to be relatable while talking about a issues that links together people,  a common issue or injustice that will create emotions in the audience and make they think in a new way. It also has to be instantly understandable, the audience might only be able to give a quick glance or walk pass the imagery but has to get the meaning and be effected by it in these few seconds, bold enough to make a sudden understandable impact. Like with the Gros illustration, it took a issues that the whole country was aware of then using wit made the duke a laughing stock. Everyone who saw it from every age found it amusing, even children who didn't understand the statement could see the comical basis of a fat man bleeding corn. Graphic design can be dangerous, it can give off a power of slander or insult in a way that can change the opinion of the people, this is the most dangerous thing, it can do, it cant physically change anything but it can change its audience then they can change the rest.

'Art can't change anything expect people, but art changes people and people can make everything change' Tony Kursher  

By make laughing stocks of important people this removes their power, afterwards no one takes them seriously so they cannot use the fear they relied on. This is show very clearly in the little illustration, it made the duke look silly and powerless, pulled apart the fear he worked on and drove him down so the people where scared anymore but laughed at him, it did this in a way that only art can, in a way that it doesn't need to be communicated or explained but it just works.