Nothing Subtle in the Art of War
By Michael O'Sullivan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, January 11, 2008; Page WE16
There's an uncomfortable timeliness to the Smithsonian American Art Museum's "Over the Top: American Posters From World War I." Falling somewhere between publicity and propaganda, these images from 1917 to 1919 were designed, for the most part, to sell war bonds. In a larger sense, they were advertisements for the war itself.
"Man, they really demonized them, didn't they?" a recent visitor was heard to comment, in response to Henry Raleigh's depiction of a shadowy German soldier threatening a young mother and her infant.
"Well, they started it," replied his companion.
Sound familiar? It certainly might, in a world where "You are either with us or against us" has become just one of many cultural touchstones for loyalty in the global war on terror.
One of the first works you'll see here shows the Statue of Liberty, in a pose that calls to mind the finger-jabbing Uncle Sam of James Montgomery Flagg's famous "I Want You" recruitment campaign for the U.S. Army. Stern, yet distinctly worried-looking, she scolds the viewer with the caption: "You Buy a Liberty Bond Lest I Perish."
It's hardly subtle. Then again, neither was the celebrated National Lampoon magazine cover from 1973, whose facetious headline -- "If You Don't Buy This Magazine, We'll Kill This Dog" -- ran next to a photograph of a sweet-looking mutt nervously eyeing the gun pointed at its head. I couldn't help being reminded of that outrageous ad parody by a show that more than deserves its title -- "Over the Top." On a literal level it refers to Sidney H. Riesenberg's poster of a Yank charging out of a foxhole, but it's also an apt summation of a medium not known for understatement.
These are, after all, posters. Their sales pitches had to be made with a single, graphic punch. What's at stake, they argue, at least in visual terms, is freedom itself. Stand-ins for that abstract concept include the bald eagle and Liberty Bell, in addition frequent appearances by Lady Liberty.
Other works make clear the danger to American womanhood itself. Each of three posters by Howard Chandler Christy features clingy-dressed maidens -- virgins, presumably -- hawking war bonds. The cost of inaction? Don't ask.
What's being manipulated here, quite simply, is a sense of patriotic duty (some might call it guilt). If the workman in Gerrit Albertus Beneker's "Sure! We'll Finish the Job" can scrounge up a few coins from the pocket of his overalls, surely you can, too.
On one level, the show approaches camp, evidenced by the assortment of poster and postcard reproductions for sale in the museum's gift shop. Weren't we naive back then? they seem to ask. On another level, "Over the Top" may be just close enough to current events to make some careful observers squirm.
