Pablo Picasso - Massacre in Korea from 1950

Pablo Picasso was the heavy critic of the American war intervention in Korea, so the painting Massacre

in Korea is often considered as one of Picasso’s communist works. The artworks posses strong reflection

of one of the first paintings of the new age – Francisco Goya‘s masterpiece The Third of May 1808 from

which it derives the political statement comparing the American forces in North Korea with the

imperialistic Napoleon army, Tyrant of Europe. The artist openly depicted civilians killed by anti-

communist forces as heroes standing erect and mocked the misshaped firing squad.

Massacre in Korea is a 1951 expressionistic painting by Pablo Picasso which is seen as a criticism of

American intervention in the Korean War. It depicts the 1950 Sinchon Massacre, an act of mass killing

carried out by North Koreans, South Koreans, and American forces in the town of Sinchon located in

South Hwanghae Province, North Korea. Although the actual cause of the murders in Sinchon is in

question, Massacre in Korea appears to depict them as civilians being killed by anti-Communist forces.

The art critic Kirsten Hoving Keen says that it is "inspired by reports of American atrocities" and

considers it one of Picasso's communist works. Picasso's work is drawn from Francisco Goya's painting

The Third of May 1808, which shows Napoleon's soldiers executing Spanish civilians under the orders of

Joachim Murat.

As with Goya's The Third of May 1808, the painting is marked by a bifurcated composition, divided into

two distinct parts. To the left, a group of naked women and children are seen situated at the foot of a

mass grave. A number of heavily armed "knights" stand to the right, also naked, but equipped with

"gigantic limbs and hard muscles similar to those of prehistoric giants." The firing squad is rigidly poised

as in Goya. In Picasso's representation, however, the group is manifestly helter-skelter - as was often

apparent in his portrayals of armored soldiers in drawings and lithographs - which may be taken to

indicate an attitude of mockery of the idiocy of war.

Their helmets are misshapen, and their weaponry is a mishmash amalgamation of the instruments of

aggression from the medieval period to the modern era - not quite guns or lances, they perhaps most

resemble candlesticks. What is more, none of them have penises. This representational feature is

highlighted by the pregnant state of the women on the left side of the panel. Many viewers have
interpreted that the soldiers, in their capacity as destroyers of life, have substituted guns for their

penises, thereby castrating themselves and depriving the world of the next generation of human life.

This organisation highlights the differences in strength between the factions – the innocent victims form

a more vulnerable and less well defined shape while the attackers are protected by their robust

formation. This contrast is accentuated by the fact that both groups of figures are nude but, while the

women and children are totally unprotected, the soldiers wear helmets and masks in addition to holding

various weapons. This ruined building becomes a prefiguration of the massacre and the placing makes

the destruction specific to this group of Koreans as opposed to a more general statement about the

massive loss of life during the war.

Norman Rockwell - The Problem We All Live With from 1964

Norman Rockwell’s painting The Problem We All Live With is directly addressing the racism in America

and the universality of the people being affected with this harmful politics. The painting reflects the real

fact that the African-American girl was escorted on her way to elementary school by four US marshals,

walking in front of the protesters in 1960 at New Orleans. Racist graffiti, limited freedom of movement,

racial segregation at schools were the reality of the American south in 1960s so the artist rise a voice

against it.

After World War II, the Civil Rights Movement grew to dominate the national discourse. One of the first

major victories came in 1954 when the Supreme Court found in Brown v. Board of Education that

segregation of public education was unconstitutional. Schools would be racially integrated.

It was a huge moment, but unfortunately, schools, particularly across the South, found ways to resist the

Supreme Court's decision. So, education had to be integrated slowly, in many cases one school at a time.

Finally, in 1960, federal Judge J. Skelly Wright was able to enforce the desegregation of New Orleans

schools.

On November 14, 1960, the William Frantz Elementary School was integrated when its first black

student arrived. Her name was Ruby Bridges. Ruby Bridges arrived at the school escorted by federal

marshals. People threw things and screamed, white parents withdrew their children from the school,

and only a single teacher in the entire building would agree to teach her. At the end of the day, Bridges

was escorted back out of the school by federal marshals. She was six years old. Rockwell Responds
To many Americans, the news footage of an angry mob shouting and threatening a six-year-old girl was

horrifying. Among the Americans to be deeply unsettled by this was Norman Rockwell. As an illustrator,

Rockwell was deeply tuned in to American society and attitudes, and had attempted to deal with

minority issues before. However, there had been roadblocks. While working for The Saturday Evening

Post, Rockwell had once been forced to change an entire painting to remove an African-American

person in the crowd. By the publisher's policies, minorities could be shown only in service industry

positions. By the 1960s, Rockwell was free from such constraints, and in 1963, he was commissioned by

Look magazine to paint a piece on civil rights. The image that came to his mind was the sight of six-year-

old Ruby Bridges walking boldly into her newly desegregated school. So, that was the scene he painted

.(gilabugan ug tomatoes)