Source a range of images in which illustrators have created a sense of us and them or ‘otherness’. Read the images and identify how you think they have done this. think about how they could have represented the subject differently, to avoid creating such a distance between them and the subject.
Paul Hogarth
I started by looking at contemporary reportage illustrators, whilst looking through these I came across Paul Hogarth, now I had researched him in Illustration 1 so knew a little about his work. I came across some illustrations he had done from his Irish sketchbook, for the book Brendan Behan’s Island, a book about the Aran islands and Irish middle classes, and the Anglo Irish horse protestants.
The sketches are of local people and Hogarth has drawn the children in the foreground as though they are looking at him/ us, or he is looking at them to draw. The big grand houses in the background, the children playing in the road all have a sense of them and us, which is portrayed by the composition of the sketch.
He could have waited for the children to have started to just be natural and play, before he started sketching them, that would have given an impression of being amongst the children, rather than that them and us vibe.
Paul Hogarth was a descendent of William Hogarth, showing the 18th century high and low life, Paul had inherited the skills at drawing and capturing London at work and at leisure. His sketches capture a moment, a swiftness into life in the swinging 60’s.
Here we have the morning commute, of everyone crowding in the station and railway line, spilling off the trains to walk the rest of the way to work.
You can feel the energy of the morning, the rush to get to work, the viewpoint that Hogarth has used is from above looking slightly into the station, it gives that feeling of them and us, they are rushing to work, and here I am leisurely sketching you.
Again maybe if Hoggarth sat on a bench in the station, and was drawing from the same level as the people rushing to work, it would have given that impression of being one of them, rather than the them and us perspective.
Paul Nash
Through looking at Paul Hogarth’s work I then came across Paul Nash, I found one of his war paintings with the words :- “I am no longer an artist, I am a messenger to those who want the war to go on for ever… and may it burn their lousy souls”
I find this painting really shocking it portrays that them and us theme very strongly, here they are in the midst of devastation, the waste of life and the realistic scenes of war. Yet here we are in our homes looking at this scene maybe unaware of what is happening, or terrifyingly aware if our sons are there/ were there!
This painting was more difficult to find another perspective to not create that them and us look, to me this is necessary to show this painting in this way as its needs to show how war really is. But from the exercise perspective again I would say the painting needed to come from the perspective of the soldiers, so create drawings as though he was there, which he was, but that doesn’t portray in the painting, maybe show his arm or leg in the painting, to show the viewer he was there.
The contrast of the nature that carries on around you, yet the destruction of the trees and the devastation of the fallen men.
I was drawn to this picture of Nash’s as the contrast was really evident, the colours so delicate and soft, pastel pinks and blues, and the workings of the stream trains, the business of the city, the growth of the trees abundant and lush.
Then the contrast of the tanks, the bare land and the dull stormy sky. This promotes the them and us movement, here we are in Oxford living and getting on with our lives, like nothings changed, and here you are in the war zone, dark and sparse and war torn.
Although this painting does meld the two contrasts together in the picture, the separation is still strong, I would probably say to show a more gradual contrast or divide, so keep the colours similar or gently fad the colours together to show a unity rather than a clear divide and separation, it would then show the war side that people at home were with them.
The ‘them and us’ in these pictures are drawn by the illustrators and artists themselves, in Paul Hogarth’s sketches he may have been asked by the author to draw in that way, rather than his decision himself, but Paul Nash was from his choosing to paint the perspective in that way.
The perspectives where done here obviously for a reason, that probably was being the reportage side of the illustrators job, where the viewer back home see’s the situations from their point of view, rather from actually being there.
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