Picture This: World War I Posters and Visual Culture

4. Regression versus Progression: Fundamental Differences in German and American Posters of the First World War

JAKUB KAZECKI & JASON LIEBLANG Regression versus Progression: Fundamental Differences in German and American Posters of the First World War I n his classic Posters of the First World War, Maurice Rickards focuses on the universality of First World War poster language : on the similarities—thematic, visual, and linguistic —that pervade the war propaganda poster production of the time. While not disputing the presence of such similarities as common archetypes, slogans, and images to which Rickards points, we argue there are nevertheless fundamental differences in the posters of the combatant nations. This is nowhere more apparent than in German and American posters created between 1914 and 1918 and is most clearly visible in those designs created after the United States entered the conflict in April 1917. German and American posters reveal underlying differences of historical, social, and national perspective, which are enforced , reinforced, and sometimes created through subject selection and manner of portrayal. A survey of the posters reveals two nations, constructed out of different historical narratives , that identify with and are formed by different ideologies , iconographies, and modes of linguistic appeal. We highlight these differences in poster language through the comparison of a representative cross section of individual German and American examples taken from the twelve 112 JAKUB KAZECKI AND JASON LIEBLANG hundred posters we have examined. While certainly far from exhaustive, in our opinion the selection constitutes a survey sufficiently wide in scope to support our conclusions.1 We organize our analysis of these differences around a central distinction between regressive (Germany) and progressive (United States) narratives, a distinction we explain in terms of divergences in the development of the medium, different attitudes toward propaganda, and a fundamental difference of ethos. This regressive/progressive distinction is not intended as a value judgment , nor are we referring to any political vocabulary. Rather, this opposition captures the different temporal, spatial, and social attitudes communicated through these posters. Art-historical and technological developments of the poster medium partially explain the differences in poster production and design of Germany and the United States during the Great War. The invention of steam-powered rotary printing (1843) and photoengraving (1881) caused a poster production boom in the United States in the 1880s and ’90s. American artists profited from the artistic freedom these inventions guaranteed, developing original poster art that diverged from the German traditions rooted in the decorative and academic style of the Düsseldorf Academy of Art, the alma mater of many early American poster creators.2 A distinctly American school developed favoring dynamic and realistic designs executed with graphic vitality and expressed in true color. Posters in the United States were used primarily as vehicles of commercial advertisement and were shaped by the competition for market share between the periodicals they promoted.3 Accessibility to the American public became important.4 German posters did not show the same degree of adaptability because Germany’s social profile was not changing so dynamically. Unlike their American counterparts, German designers worked within a firmly established and homogeneous REGRESSION VERSUS PROGRESSION 113 cultural context and could also count on a high level of literacy . In addition, the commercial poster boom did not arrive in Germany until almost twenty years after America’s “poster revolution”: Lucian Bernhard and Ludwig Hohlwein created their first advertising posters during the period 1900–10, and these designs, influenced by Jugendstil illustration, shaped the form of the commercial poster in Germany up to the First World War. The most important compositional differences between American and German propaganda posters stem from their respective prewar traditions. The employment of a broader color spectrum resulted from the availability to American artists of greater technological and economic resources. While not all American posters are vibrantly colorful, many exhibit a wider spectrum than do German posters. Whereas German poster artists drew from Jugendstil, from the abstract directions of the European avant-garde, and from the typographical and compositional developments of Bernhard and Hohlwein, American artists worked out of a homegrown painterly tradition stressing realism and narrative.5 Although many German posters show human figures and scenes representing “reality,” the limited colors, the employment of color in blocks, and greater abstraction in human representation foreground decorative rather than thematic aspects. A wide survey also reveals that purely textual posters and those using maps with accompanying text make up a far greater percentage of overall production in Germany. These posters incorporate a lot of...