Photomontage

John Heartfield was a photographer who is mostly remembered for his political photomontages that he used as a politiical weapon as anti-Nazi anti fascist statements.  He changed his name in 1917 from Helmut Herzeld to John Heartfield as a protest against the anti-British point of view that the German people had adopted, for example they would shout in the street "Gott strafe England!" ("May God punish England!") because of his views and his photomontages he spent a lot of time running from the Nazis and ended up in Britain in 1938, a year later he moved with his family to the United States.  I chose to analyse him because most montages are a bit of fun but his work could really make an impact on the war or just peoples feelings, he was really brave to even think the way he did especially as the nazis where so hot on his heels.  Very few people could make such an impact with a photomontage.  I chose him as he immediately made an impact on me so much so that I chose to make a historical propaganda photomonatge myself.  To make his montages he cut parts from archives and newspapers hired photographers to resize or take other pictures he needed.

"Hurrah, the Butter is Gone!"

The first picture and probably my favourite is of a German family sitting around a table eating scraps of metal, machine parts and weapons.  He did this to emphasise the fact that hitler was more concerned with creating his army than how he was going to feed his own people.  This kind of thing was typical in his work you'll find hidden meanings in all of it some more obvious than others.

Some more of his work

Hannah Höch was born in Germany on November 1, 1889 and died in 1978 at 88 years old.  She trained at Berlin college of arts and craft and was 1 of the few women involved in the Dada movement and she was one of the originators of the Photomontage!  She supported women's rights and same sex relationships this shows in her work, for example in the montage below if you look in the bottom right hand corner you'll see a map, this map outlines the countries in Europe that women have the right to vote, in her picture is just above the map instead of her signature.  You can also see John Heartfield in a bathtub, poets, machines, anti Dada-ists and political figures including Karl Liebknecht, a German communist leader who along with co-party leader Rosa Luxenbourg was jailed tortured and assassinated along with other left wing part members following the Spartacist uprising in 1919.  As 1 of the only women members of the Dada movement whose intentions were through art to make political changes I think she was a brave lady and her work will be remembered forever.  

There is so much going on in this picture you should have a look at it yourself.

When I saw a montage by John Heartfield, I knew there and then I wanted to do something similar.  I started planning for this, I first did some research on him and found out what audience he was aiming at.  As times have changed and we won the war, my audience couldn't be like his as his was either already occupied by Germany or soon to be.  So I decided to ask a question.  Why did Britain not get occupied and how is it that all of Europe and the world are no longer under the rule of the Germans?  We would all like to think it was because Britain was unbeatable, strong and fearless but in reality if it was not for Churchill's radio speech, where he asked our now allies for help they wouldn't have helped us, in fact 7/10 Americans did not want America to help anyone in Europe even though not helping would one day most likely mean they would also be taken over.  The fact is Hitlers army would have in the end beaten Britain.  Hitlers army was just too big and strong although in Europe, Britain would have gave the best fight and hitler knew this and knew we was his only threat and even respected us for this.  The Great British public were ready to fight, probably very scared but we were  very stubborn and would not go down without a fight.  This was the view of Great Britain at the time and the great Winston Churchill who was just as or even more stubborn, was the voice of Britain in every way.  This is the reason I chose him for my collage, I know not everyone agreed with his tactics during the war, it saddens me to hear some of the stuff that went on as well but nobody can deny that the war was not his fault it was the evil hitlers and nobody can deny without his leadership Britain, like most of Europe would have fell to Germany and a lot of us wouldn't be here today.  So my targeted audience for this montage is everyone that is free from hitlers madness today.

Evaluation

To create my montage I took 5 images I found on the internet, I then used my ipad as a screen that I then scanned with my scanner.  All the steps and settings are shown on the images below.  I chose to do it in black and white to give a historical feel to it.  After printing my image I could see that some of the text that I added to the right of my image has been cut out on the print after reading about this I have found that any print or anything desperately important should be moved closer in to avoid this problem.  If I did this over I would most probably add some color to make it more exciting and maybe use less images as too many might be just a tad bit distracting.