Art and the Establishment
Portrait of Charles I by Sir Anthony van
Dyck, 1599-1641
(National Gallery, London/Bridgeman
Art Library)
The state has always used art as a status symbol. King Charles
I spent much of the country’s wealth on expensive masterpieces.
The court painter Van Dyck depicted him as a great military ruler
on a powerful horse. In the 1970s, Conservative leader Margaret
Thatcher’s image was repackaged. Her hair, clothes and speech
all became softer, more ‘voter friendly’.
Ad agencies and media advisors now do the kind of makeovers court
painters did in the past. In the ‘Cool Britannia’ days of the
1990s, Tony Blair associated himself with Britpop bands like Oasis
and young British artists. Using the fashionable, reflected glory
of the arts, he (temporarily) re-branded both the Labour Party
and the country.
In response, newspaper cartoons can criticise the government
and its policies. But you don’t have to be an established cartoonist
to address a wide audience. Comment has ranged from a Roman soldier’s
scratched caricature of a local dignitary (still preserved on
a wall in Pompeii) to lip-synched cut-and-paste footage mocking
Blair and Bush’s relationship (by Johan Söderberg at
Atmo). Anyone with something to say can use either scissors
and glue or computer image manipulation and the internet. |
