A'~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~I

- _s a ~~~NEEDS

Fig. 1. Alfred Leete, Lord Kitchener, 'Your Country Needs You', recruitment
poster, UK, 1914.
 ARTICLES AND ESSAYS
'Your CountryNeeds You':
a Case Study in Political Iconography
by Carlo Ginzburg

In his last book, Theatresof Memory(1994), RaphaelSamuelwrote:

A historiographythat was alert to memory'sshadows- those sleeping

images which springto life unbidden,and serve as ghostly sentinels of
our thought - might give at least as much attention to pictures as to
manuscriptsor print.The visualprovidesus with our stock figures,our
subliminalpoints of reference,our unspokenpoint of address.1

I am confidentthatRaphaelSamuelwouldhaveapprovedof the topicI have

chosen for this lecturein his memory,whichdeals not only with imagesbut
also withpatriotism,anotherissue on whichhe spenta considerableamount
of intellectualenergy. I am not sure that he would have agreed with my
approach.I shallreturnto thispossibleareaof disagreementin my conclusion.

'A poor general,but a wonderfulposter':this comment,attributedto Lady

Asquith, has long been associatedwith the memory of Lord Kitchener.2
(Fig. 1).
A historicalevaluationof Lord Kitchener'slong militarycareer would
be out of place here. What concernsme today is not the reality but, in a
most literalsense, the image:the posteritself,seen as both the outcomeand
the catalystof a series of intricateprocesseswhichdeserve a closer look.
Lord Kitchener,at the time the militarygovernorof Egypt, arrivedin
Englandon 23 June 1914. On 28 June FrancisFerdinandof Habsburg,the
Austrianarchduke,was murderedin Sarajevo;on 28 July,havingseen its
ultimatumto Serbiarejected,Austriainitiatedhostilities.On 3 August,the
eve of Great Britain'sdeclarationof war, The Timespublishedan article
urgingthe PrimeMinister,Lord Asquith,to yield his position as Secretary
of Warto the vacationinggovernorof Egypt:

[Kitchener]is at home, and his selection for this onerous and important
post wouldmeet withwarmpublicapproval... It is earnestlyto be hoped
that ... the Field Marshalwill acceptit, if only for the periodof the war.3

LordKitchener,then sixty-four,was indeed a verypopularfigure.Formany

History Workshop Journal Issue 52 C History Workshop Journal 2001

2 HistoryWorkshopJournal

yearsthe presshad been describingin romantic,nearlylegendarytermsthe

man who had crushedthe Mahdistrebellion at Omdurman,dubbinghim
'the avengerof Gordon'.But G. W. Steevens,the journalistwhose account
of the marchto Khartoumhad made Kitchenerfamous,had also stressed
the inhumanaspectsof his hero. Kitchenerwas, accordingto Steevens,'The
ManWho Has Made Himselfa Machine',a manwho 'oughtto be patented
and shownwith pride at the ParisInternationalExhibition,BritishEngine:
ExhibitNo. 1, hors concours,the SudanMachine'.4
Even Kitchener'smost sympatheticbiographersmade no attempts to
conceal that he was widely-perceivedas a distant,stern figure- although
they claimedthat the real man was less inaccessiblethanhe seemed.5Many
politiciansshareda criticalview of Kitchener.The most vocal amongthem
was WinstonChurchill,who had served under Kitchenerin the Sudan ('It
was a case of dislikebefore firstsight',was his later comment).In his book
on the SudancampaignChurchillwrote:

[Kitchener]treatedall men like machines,fromthe privatesoldierwhose

saluteshe disdained,to the superiorofficershe rigidlycontrolled... The
stern and unpityingspiritof the Commanderwas communicatedto the
troops, and the victories which markedthe progressof the River War
were accompaniedby acts of barbaritynot alwaysjustifiedeven by the
harshcustom of savage conflictsor the fierce and treacherousnatureof
the Dervish.6

A harsh,ruthless,implacablesoldier;a skilfulmilitaryorganizer;a faithful

servant of the British Empire across the continents - from Africa, to
Australia,to India.This was the man called on by The Times on 3 August
1914 to play the role of a dictatorin the true Roman sense: the victorious
soldierreadyto serve his countryin a time of danger.
That same day Kitchenermade his way to Dover in an unsuccessful
attemptto leave.7He triedagainthe day after,4 August;but at the very last
minutea messagefromthe PrimeMinisterarrivedandKitchenerwent back
to London.A daypassed.Britainenteredthe warwithouthavingappointed
a new Secretaryof War.Clearlythings were not going smoothly.Presum-
ably Lord Asquithwas not particularlyeager to offer Kitchenera position
traditionallygiven to civilians;and Kitchenerwas apparentlyhesitant to
acceptit. On 5 August The Times pressedagainfor LordKitchener'snomi-
nation, launchinga full-fledgedattackagainsthis most seriouscompetitor:
Haldane, the Lord Chancellor.The militarycorrespondentof The Times,
Charles 'aCourt, Colonel Repington, who had been a member of Kitch-
ener's staff duringthe Sudan campaign,wrote a long article in which he
sharplyjuxtaposedHaldane'spro-Germanimage and Kitchener'simmacu-
late pro-Frenchrecord (as a young man, he had enrolled as a volunteerin
the Franco-Prussianwar). After having once more stressed Kitchener's
organizationalgifts and the confidencehe was sure to inspirein the nation,
the militarycorrespondentconcluded:
 'YourCountryNeeds You' 3

We are well awarethat Kitcheneris not a partyman, and the suggestion

is without a precedent;but the situationis wholly exceptional,and calls
for exceptional measures ... The War Office really needs Lord Kitch-
ener, and ought to have him.8

In a few hours those words had become reality.Late in the evening of 5

AugustLord Kitchenerwas appointedSecretaryof War.It has been noted
thathe was the firstservingsoldierto sit in any Cabinetsince George Monk
in 1660.9Lord Northcliffe,the strong-willedand fiercelypro-warowner of
The Times and the Daily Mail, had succeededin overcomingall resistance
includingLord Kitchener's.10
Also on 5 August, The Times had issued an appeal,a call to arms:

YourKing and CountryNeed You

Will you answeryour Country'scall?
Each day is fraughtwith the gravestpossibilities,and at
this very momentthe Empireis on the brinkof the greatest
war in the historyof the world.
In this crisisyour Countrycalls on all her young unmarried
men to rallyroundher Flag and enlist in the ranksof the Army.
If every patrioticyoung man answersher call, Englandand the
Empirewill emerge strongerand more united than ever. If you are
unmarriedand between 18 and 30 years old will you answeryour
Country'scall? And go to the nearestRecruiter- whose address
you can get at any Office,and
Join the Army
Today!'"

The propagandamachine of wartimehad begun rolling, the message was

there - only Lord Kitchener'sname and face were missing. The Call to
Arms was republishedthe followingday;on 7 Augusta requestfrom Lord
Kitchenerfor 'an addition of 100,000men to his Majesty'sregularArmy'
was published:'LordKitcheneris confidentthat this appealwill be at once
responded to by all those who have the safety of our Empire at heart'.12
The impactof this personalappeal,which was repeated over and over,
was enormous.The hordes of volunteersclimbedto thirty-fivethousanda
day.FromSeptember1914onwardsthe appealwas reinforcedby the poster
with Kitchener'sface. Althoughthe initialrecruitingboom declined,in the
first eighteen months of war, before the adoption of compulsoryservice,
'Kitchener'sarmies', or 'Kitchener'sdivisions' (even some official docu-
mentsused these terms)swelledto two and a half millionmen - a veryhigh
figure,whichKitchener'sobituariesturnedinto five million.13
This massivephenomenonultimatelycollapsedthe distinctionbetween
LordKitchenerthe poster and Lord Kitchenerthe general,contributingto
the victoryof the formerover the latter.Kitchener'seyes, staringfrom the
ubiquitousposters,left a deep impressionon his contemporaries:
4 Journal
HistoryWorkshop

~~~ig 2d Photograp ofa grupo vlun;teers,1914

n 4b
~~~~~~L. i
T~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Fig. 3. A. L. Mauzan, 'All of you, Fig. 4. 'YOU! shirker, defeatist,

do your duty', poster for defence counter-revolutionary BE
bonds, Italy, 1917. AFRAID!' Hungarian World-War.
One recruitment poster.
 'Your Country Needs You' 5

Theircolour is quite beautiful[a journalistwrote]- as deep and as clear

a blue as the sea, in its most azure moments- and they look out at the
world,with the perfectdirectnessof a manwho sees straightto his end.14

Kitchener'seyes reappear,as an epitome of his life and character,in the

official three-volumebiographypublishedin 1916, shortly after his tragic
death in the wreckof the Hampshire:

Even the eyes, on whose steely qualitiesso many have dwelt, were not
youngor brilliant- too muchsandhad blownin them for that;and there
was a slight- a very slight- divergencebetween them. But they looked
very straightat any person Lord Kitchenerwantedto see ... 15

A journalisthad indicated the same detail, in a rather disparagingtone,

while Kitchenerwas still alive:

About the eyes of Kitchenerit may be said without offence that the
terrorthey inspire is heightenedby a squintwhich has tended to grow
more pronouncedwith age. The eyes are blue, penetrating,and full of
judgment;withouttheir irregularity,they would be difficulteyes to face,
but with this irregularitythey fill certainmen with a veritableparalysis
of terror.Some one who knows him very well has describedto me the
effect of those eyes upon people who meet him for the firsttime: 'They
strikeyou', I was told, 'witha kind of clutchingterror;you look at them,
try to say something,look away,and then tryingto speak,findyour eyes
returningto that dreadfulgaze, and once more choke with silence'.16

For Kitchener'sadmirerseven his slightphysicaldefect,barelyvisiblein the

posters, became part of his posthumouslegend: 'His gaze was somewhat
strange,due, no doubt, to a slight divergenceof the visual axes - a gaze
which no one talkingto him could wholly meet, however boldly he might
stare.The Sphinxmust look like that'.17

I will return to Kitchener'sgaze later. Let us now focus on the poster's

impact. A photographfrom the ImperialWar Museum Archive shows a
group of volunteerswho respondedto Kitchener'scall to arms.(Fig. 2) A
carefulreaderof this picturestressedthe social mix of the recruits.

In a group of half a dozen can be seen at least three classes, each

identifiedby appropriatehead-gear:the cloth-capof the working-man;
the straw-boaterof the 'gent' or 'toff'; the trilbyof the man of business
or professionalman.18

This comment sounds unexceptionable,but it raises a further question.

6 History Workshop Journal

r 9~LT
III4 jfty'I?Jtyrl I1'fi7If<laIIt)hlJ~'I

i1)t' $tJl1enmll
f '
FOR U.S.ARNYf
Fig 5. J. U. Engelhardt, 'You too Fig 6. J. M. Flagg, 'I want you for
must enlist', recruitment poster, U.S. Army', recruitment poster, US,
Germany, 1919. 1917.

Fig 7. D. Moor, 'Have YOU Fig 8. Dirk Bouts, Christus,

Enrolled as a Volunteer?', Red Salvator Mundi (Vera effigies),
Army recruitment poster, Russia, c. 1464.
1920.
 'Your Country Needs You' 7

Sincethe recruitmentcentreswere locatedin differentneighbourhoods,the

social mix representedin the picturewould have been unlikely- except in
a stagedpicture.19In this case, the commentwould make explicita deliber-
ately subliminalmessage - to use Raphael Samuel'swords.We would get
the message,namely,that differentsocialgroupsequallyrespondedto Lord
Kitchener'sappeal, but we would miss the code. Even propaganda,an
allegedlyself-evident,transparentlanguage,needs to be deciphered.
Duringthe war,or immediatelyafterthe war,moreor less reworkedver-
sions of the Kitchenerposterwere made in Italy,Hungary,and Germany.20
In the United Statesand the Soviet Union Lord Kitchenerreappeared,dis-
guised as, respectively,Uncle Sam and Trotsky.21(Figs 3,4,5,6,7)This long
series of imitationsand variations(along with, as we shall see, inversions
and parodies)provesthe effectivenessof LordKitchener'sposter:arguably
the most successfulever.
We'll never know how many people decided to volunteer under the
impulse of Kitchener'simage. In some cases the ultimatereason for that
choice must have been opaque to the actors themselves.22It is certainly
inscrutableto later observerslike us. But we can safely assume that the
imperativesconveyed by those posters- YOUR KING AND COUNTRY
NEED YOU, KITCHENERWANTSMOREMEN,andso forth- affected
many onlookers. The depiction of authorityacted like authorityitself. A
discharge of social energy took place; a command was introjected and
turnedinto a decisionwhichwas, literally,a matterof life and death.
This effectiveness has usually been taken for granted - preventing a
closer analysisof the visual and verbalmechanismsinvolved.How did the
poster act?

The tool I shall use to answer this question is Aby Warburg'snotion of

Pathosformeln, formulasof emotion.23For a long time Warburg'slegacy -
his libraryand the instituteattachedto it - obscuredthe importanceof his
own writings.Duringthe last few decadesthe seminalideas he workedout
in the late nineteenthand early twentiethcenturyhave become more and
more influential.The idea of Pathosformeln, one of the most important
amongthem,wasintroducedby GertrudBing,the distinguishedscholarwho
was at one time directorof the WarburgInstitute,in the followingterms:

it was paganculture,both in religiousritualandin imagery,that supplied

the most telling expression of elemental impulses [Pathosformeln].
Pictorialformsaremnemonicsfor suchoperations;andthey canbe trans-
mitted, transformed,and restoredto a new and vigorouslife, wherever
kindredimpulsesarise.24

In the Middle Ages, when 'the expression of elemental impulses' was

banned for religious reasons, that 'primeval vocabulary of passionate
8 HistoryWorkshopJournal

gesticulation'(as Warburglabelled it) had been forgotten.Warburgcame

to realize that the formula- the emotional gesture - was a neutralforce,
open to different,even opposite interpretations.Those Renaissanceartists
who recoveredsuchgesturesoccasionallyinvertedtheirclassicalmeaning.25
My attemptto act out Warburg'sargumentwill startwith three passages
from the thirty-fifthbook of Pliny the Elder's Natural History, a section
entirelydevotedto GreekandRomanartists.26 The firstdealswithFamulus,
a painterfromthe time of EmperorAugustus.He was,Plinywrote (XXXV,
120), 'a dignifiedand severe but also very florid artist;to him belonged
a Minerva who viewed the viewer no matter where he looked from'
(spectantem spectans, quacumque aspiceretur).27
The second passage (XXXV, 92) is about Apelles, the famous Greek
painter:

He also painted Alexander the Great holding a thunderbolt,in the

temple of Artemis at Ephesus, for a fee of twenty talents in gold. The
fingers have the appearanceof projectingfrom the surface, and the
thunderboltseems to standout from the picture(digitieminerevidentur
et fulmen extra tabulam esse); readers must remember that all this was
producedby four colours ... 28

A third passage (XXXV, 126) indirectly clarifies the meaning of the

previous one. Apelles's depiction of Alexander as Zeus, with projecting
fingers and holding a thunderbolt,relied upon extreme foreshortening,a
visual device which had been brought to perfection by another painter,
Pausias.Here is Pliny again:

But Pausias also did large pictures, for instance the sacrificeof oxen
which formerlywas to be seen in Pompey'sPortico.He firstinvented a
method of paintingwhich has afterwardsbeen copied by many people
but equalledby no-one; the chief point was that althoughhe wantedto
show the long body of an ox he paintedthe animalfacingthe spectator
and not standingsideways,and its greatsize is fully conveyed(adversum
eum pinxit, non traversum, et abunde intellegitur amplitudo).29

What made Lord Kitchener'sposter possible is in my view a long chain-

reaction ignited by the combinedreading of these passages.Let us listen
to the voices of three among the many witnesses who attested to the
ubiquitouspresenceof LordKitchener'sposterduringthe FirstWorldWar.
The firstis MichaelMacDonagh,a journaliston The Times, who in January
1915wrote:

Posters appealingto recruitsare to be seen on every hoarding,in most

shop windows,in omnibuses,tramcarsand commercialvans. The great
 'YourCountryNeeds You' 9

base of Nelson's Pillaris covered with them. Their numberand variety

are remarkable.Everywhere Lord Kitchener sternly points a mon-
strouslybig finger,exclaiming:I WantYou.30

The second witness is Mont Abbott, at the time of the First WorldWara
young farmworkerfrom Enstone, Oxfordshire.In his recollectionshe said:

The gwoost of Kitchenerhad been fadinghis fingerat me for some time

on they washed-out posters outside the Post-Office, 'Your King and
CountryNEED YOU'. Being up to me eyes the last few yearsin 'Rosy's
rump',lone calves, mad bulls, and hungryhorses out at FulwellI hadn't
had time to list at Kitchener.But by 1918the old gwoost were cropping
up afresh,pointing at me from barn doors and tree trunks,'YourKing
and CountryNEED YOU'. The Germanswere hammeringyet againat
our exhaustedlads in the fifth army,90,000of our men and 1,300of our
guns taken at Lys. I'd be sixteenin July.I only hoped the lads could hold
out till I got there

- which they did.31

The thirdwitness is H. D. Davray,the authorof a biographypublished
in France after Lord Kitchener'sdeath and immediatelytranslatedinto
English. In June 1916, Davray writes, at a time when Lord Northcliffe's
press had started to attack Lord Kitchenerfor his failure to provide the
necessaryquantityof bomb shells to the Frenchfront:

the CentralRecruitingCommitteeposted on the wallsof Londonand all

over Great Britaina poster displayingan enormousfull-faceportraitof
LordKitchener.Fromwhateverangleit was regardedthe eyes met those
of the onlooker and never left them;and on one side in largeletterswas
the laconic appeal:KitchenerWantsMore Men!32

Mont Abbott never heardof Plinythe Elder. MacDonaghand Davraycer-

tainly were not thinking of him when they commented on Kitchener's
poster. But when we read the words 'fromwhateverangle it was regarded
the eyes met those of the onlooker and never left them', we may ask our-
selves:whose imageis beingdescribedhere,Minerva'sor LordKitchener's?
who is pointinga monstrouslybig finger,Lord Kitcheneror Alexanderthe
Great? These echoes recapitulatethe historicaltrajectorythat I am going
to sketch.

My digressionwill start from a well-knownpassage from the introduction

to De visione Dei sive de icona liber (On the vision of God or on the image),
a treatisewrittenin 1453by the greatphilosopherNicholasof Cusa,known
as Cusanus.33To give his readerssome idea of the relationshipbetweenGod
10 History Workshop Journal

Fig. 9. Crossbow Archer, Austria,

c. 1430. Fig. 10. Antonello da Messina,
Christ Blessing, c. 1465.

Fig. 11. Icon of Christ Fig. 12. Hans Memling, Christ Giving
Pantocrator, Mount Sinai His Blessing, Flemish, 1478.
Monastery of St Catherine,
sixth-seventh century.
 'YourCountryNeeds You' 11

and the world, Cusanuswrote that the most appropriateimage they could
picturewouldbe the face of somebodywho sees everything.Therearemany
such images,he went on, wonderfullypainted:the face of the archerin the
market-squareof Nuremberg;that of Roger, the great painter,in the pre-
cious panel of his, now on displayin the hall of the Brusselstribunal;that
of the Veronicain my own chapel,in Koblenz;that of the angel who holds
the insigniaof the churchin Brixen.34Cusanusaccompaniedthe manuscript
of his treatisewith a little panel showingthe image of Jesus as it had been
impressedon Veronica'sveil. If you hangit on a wall,he explained,each of
you will see that fromwhateveranglethe imageis viewed,you will have the
feeling of being, so to speak, the only one regardedby it.35
The paintingsCusanusmentioned in this passage are lost, but we can
reconstructtheir appearance.Some of them, like the true image (vera icon,
hence Veronica)of Christ,belonged to well-knowntypes. (Fig. 8)
In articulating the experience of viewing the Veronica, Cusanus
reworkedPliny'sallusionto the 'Minervawho viewed the viewerno matter
where he looked from' (spectantem spectans, quacumque aspiceretur). A
verylearnedreaderwho had (as the aforementionedpassageshows)a keen
interestin the visualartswouldhave been familiarwith Pliny'swork.36One
wonderswhetherCusanus'sreferenceto the all-seeingarcher- also a rather
widespreadtype (Fig. 9) - may have implied a reference to Pliny's dis-
cussion of the depiction of Alexander the Great holding a thunderbolt.37
Even more speculative, of course, would be a connection between the
Nurembergarcherand Pliny's.But this sort of connectioncan be assumed,
in my view, in the case of a famous paintingwhich did survive:Antonello
da Messina'sBlessing Christ (London,NationalGallery).Antonello started
from a venerable iconographictype, the so-called Salvator Mundi (the
Saviourof the World),a figurewho 'viewedthe viewerno matterwhere he
looked from', and included the blessing gesture representedby innumer-
able icons. (Figs 10, 11)
InitiallyAntonello, who was deeply interestedin the works of contem-
poraryFlemish painterslike Petrus Christusor Hans Memling, (Fig. 12)
followed the traditionaliconography;then he modified Christ'sblessing
hand by introducinga bold, innovative foreshortening.Much has been
writtenon this dramaticpentimento. In my view Antonello was inspiredby
Pliny'spassageon Alexanderthe Great depictedas Zeus: 'the fingershave
the appearanceof projectingfrom the surface,and the thunderboltseems
to stand out from the picture' (digiti eminere videntur et fulmen extra
tabulam esse). Pliny'sNatural History was publishedin Latin in 1469.The
first Italiantranslationwas issued in Venice in 1476 by the Frenchprinter
NicolasJenson.38This huge publishingeffort,involvingapproximatelyone-
thousandfolio pages, involved lengthypreparations.CristoforoLandino's
translationmust have been availablein Venice in 1475, when Antonello,
freshlyarrivedfrom Sicily,revisedand signed his painting.39
'Pare che le dita sieno rilevate et el fulgore sia fuori della tavola': this
12 HistoryWorkshopJournal

momentous sentence came to be regarded - for instance in Ludovico

Dolce's dialogue on painting (1557) - as the locus classicus, the foremost
authorityon foreshortening.40 Pliny gave no indicationof how to go about
achievingthe remarkableeffect and so his laconic descriptionbecame a
challenge to those who aimed to recreate (or invent) a fragmentof a lost
tradition.Pliny'swordsurgedon those who labouredto createpictorialillu-
sion. Foreshorteningbecame increasinglypopularamongartistsanxiousto
prove their ability to overcome difficulties.41 The crucialinfluencein this
domainwas of courseMichelangelo.In the Creationof Sun and Moon and
other frescoes in the Sistine Chapel,projectingfingers,gesticulatinghands
and bold foreshorteningsstressed spatial and narrative relationships.42
(Fig. 13) Beyond God'simperiousgestureone can see the painter'sgesture:
a not-so-hiddenanalogyinspiredby the Neoplatonicidea of art as divine
creation.43
In a splendiddrawing,now at the BritishMuseum,Pontormo,the great
Mannerist painter, articulated Michelangelo's idea in a non-narrative
context. (Fig. 14) Here the protrudingarmcreatesa sense of close intimacy
between the painter's self-image, seen in a mirror, and the viewer as
onlooker.44Nearly a centurylater, Caravaggioreworkedthe gesture with
whichMichelangeloendowedGod the FathercallingAdam to life, in order
to express a differentevent: St Matthewsummonedby the Son of God.45
(Fig. 15)
Can we interpretKitchener'spointingfingeras a secular,foreshortened
version of Jesus' horizontalgesture in Caravaggio'spainting?After all, in
both cases we have a call- a call to arms,a religiouscall.But the two images
are so differentin their formal arrangementthat one assumes that there
were some (maybe many) missinglinks in between. I have been unable to
find them. My provisionalconclusionwould be the following:Lord Kitch-
ener's poster could emerge because two intertwinedpictorial traditions
existed, involving frontal, all-seeing figures as well as figures with fore-
shortenedpointingfingers.
But those pictorialdevices, by themselves,would have been insufficient
to generateLordKitchener'sposter.Its birthplacewas locatedin a different
visualenvironment:the demoticlanguageof advertisement.46 (Figs 1, 16)

The poster for Godfrey,Phillipsand Sons cigaretteswas reproducedand

much praisedin a little book by H. Bridgewater,the advertisingmanager
of the Financial Times, entitled Advertising or the Art of Making Known. A
Simple Exposition of the Principles of Advertising, publishedin 1910.47

I have come to regard commercial warfare [Bridgewaterwrote] as

merelya highertype of the warfareof ancienttimes.To competesuccess-
fully in modern warfare - Commerce - one must possess the same
attributesthat led men to victoryin the days of yore, namely,courage,
 'Your Country Needs You' 13

00

Fg 13_ihlneo rainofteSnadMo,10-2

Fig.13. -zichelangelo,Creation of the Sun and Moon, 1508-12.

|'V
-A*s

Fig. 14. Pontormo, Nude Fig. 15. Caravaggio, Calling of St Matthew.

Study, c. 1525.
14 HistoryWorkshopJournal

perseverance,the abilityto roughit, and last, but not least, resourceful-

ness.48

Technical devices were not less important. Among them Bridgewater

stressed'the value of Perspective':

By a proper appreciationand use of perspectivean artist can depict a

landscapecoveringa largetractof country(possiblythousandsof square
miles) in a few squareinches.49

A foreshortenedfingercould also demonstratethe value of perspective.An

equally aggressiveYOU could reinforce the message. 'The you style of
advertisementsalso has come in for a great deal of attention',wrote S. R.
Hall in his Writing an Advertisement (Boston 1915):

Certainwriterswere able to get attentionand good resultsby a forceful

style of copy addressedto the reader as a letter would be, in which the
pronoun 'you' was freely used. It was 'You, Mr. Reader', 'You Need
This', and so on.50

In the front cover of the London Opinion of 5 September 1914, Alfred

Leete'sportraitof LordKitchenerwasframedby two messages:'Thispaper
insuresyou for ?1,000', '50 photographsof YOU for a shilling'.The same
techniquesused to hit a target(in a commercialsense) were used to sell the
war.Incidentally,in 1971the Committeeto Unsell the War- the Viet-Nam
war - publishedjust one poster, whose image and caption reversedLord
Kitchener'smessage:'I WANTOUT'.51(Fig. 17)

Alfred Leete's weekly drawingsfor the London Opinion had invariably

a humorous character, even when they dealt with political matters.52
The serious mood of his Kitchenerportraitwas quite exceptional.On 14
November 1914, Leete quoted his own work in a more jocular vein, by
representingLord Kitchenerin the act of catchinga young man reading
'FootballSpecial',when he ought to have been volunteering.(Fig. 18) On
26 December Leete contributedagainto the recruitingcampaign,playfully
reworking John Hassall's poster 'Skegness is so bracing' (1908), 'with
acknowledgementto the well-knownposter'.53(Fig. 19)
But in the meantime the ParliamentaryRecruiting Committee had
askedAlfred Leete to transformhis cover for the London Opinion into the
poster whichwas going to become so famous.54The reasonsfor this choice
have been stressed countless times. One writer recently suggested that
Uncle Sam, Lord Kitchener'sAmerican counterpart,was 'a strong auth-
ority figurewith whom the viewer could identify'.55But was it possible to
identify with such an authoritarianfigure?The stern glance, the stabbing
 'YourCountryNeeds You' 15

finger, the perspective as though seen from below, must have usually
elicited a feeling of awe, of hierarchicaldistance, of submission.Even a
sophisticatedobserverlike Osbert Sitwell,who startedhis recollectionsof
Kitchener with a slightly ironical tone, ultimately fell back upon a quasi-
religious attitude- as if he were respondingto the poster's ancient proto-
type:

With an altogethersquarenessand solidity,[Kitchener]sat there as if he

were a god, slightlygone to seed perhaps,but waitingconfidentlyfor his
earthlydominionto disclose itself ... a slightlyunfocusedglance which
seemed almostin its fixityto possess a power of divination... And you
could, in the mind'seye, see his image set up as that of an Englishgod,
by nativesin differentpointsof the Empirewhichhe hadhelpedto create
and support,preciselyas the Roman Emperorshad formerlybeen wor-
shipped. Within a few months' time, when from every hoardingvast
posters showed Lord Kitchenerpointing into perspectivesin space, so
steadily perceived, if focused with uncertainty,and below, the caption
'He wantsYOU!' I often thoughtof that squarefigure.. .56

Osbert Sitwell'simperialmystiquewas sharedby less snobbishobservers.

The poster'spowerignoredclassdistinctions- a tinydetailin the vastdefeat
of Europeanworkers.57
* * *

But the visual device chosen by Leete could be developed in a different

direction.Let me quote once again Pliny (XXXV, 92) on the depictionof
Alexanderthe Great by Apelles: 'The fingershave the appearanceof pro-
jecting from the surface,and the thunderboltseems to stand out from the
picture'.Thus far I have focused mainlyon projectingfingers;I was unable
to decide whether Cusanus'sarcheraiminghis arrowat the viewer was a
deliberate response to Pliny's. Apelles depicted Alexander the Great as
Zeus: his thunderboltwas an attributeof power. In the early twentieth
century the mythical thunderboltbecame a weapon, an updated bow: a
handgun.(Figs 20, 9)
'Halt! You are not allowed to go furtherwithout having read that the
typewritingmachinePolygraphis a firstclassGermanproduct':these words
were shouted by a Montenegrinbanditin an advertisementof about 1908
for a typewritermade by a Leipzigfirm,PolyphonMusikwerke.58
The poster'saim was to arrestthe viewer'sattentionand bringhim to a
halt. In this case no identificationmechanismwas involved,of course.The
Montenegrinbandit embodied not authoritybut a (playful) threat. The
Phillipscigaretteposter,praisedby the advertisingmanagerof the Financial
Times as an admirableillustrationof the arrestingpower of a forceful
illustration,achieved its aim by sending a more subdued message.59But
both posters embody a visually-aggressivequality,related to the crowded,
16 History Workshop Journal

Fig. 16. Advertisement for Fig. 17. 'I Want Out', poster, US, 1971.
Godfrey Phillips Cigarettes, Issued by the Committee to Unsell the
London, c. 1910. War.

lONDON
N~
^-:PINrh0nk

se..~~~~~~~~~~~~W
f 0.- ^s

1. Afe
FigKe. et,Lr
Kicenr
. Lno 194 Oiio,1
Nov.
Nov. 1914.

Fig. 19. Alfred Leete, 'The East

Coast is Bracing - to Recnnting',
London Opinion, 26 Dec. 1914.
 'YourCountryNeeds You' 17

tense, frenetic urban scene where they would have been seen. I wonder
whether an analogousvisual event, albeit projectedon to a nearly meta-
physical plane, might have inspired the note Aby Warburgwrote on 27
August 1890:'Assumptionthat the work of art is somethinghostile moving
towards the beholder'.60Five years later the Lumiere brothers plunged
cinemaaudiencesinto terrorby projectingtheir 'Arrivalof a Traininto the
Station of La Ciotat'.Figuresrunningtowardthe viewer became a recur-
rentfeatureof earlymovies.61LordKitchener'sposterrelieduponthe same
visualdevices and was addressedto an audienceaccustomedto cinemaand
its rangeof sophisticatedvisualtricks,includingGriffith'sclose-ups.Visual
devices inventedby Hellenisticpainterswere successfullyadaptedto twen-
tieth-centurylife and its demands.But as Warburgcame to appreciateas he
analyzedthe art of the ItalianRenaissance,the meaningof ancientformu-
las sometimesgot reversedin transmission.
A chillingillustrationof this symbolicinversionis providedby a German
postermade in 1944,duringthe occupationof the Ukraine.62(Fig.21). This
ugly piece of Nazi propagandaturned the discoveryof a mass grave, the
result of Stalinistextermination,into an incitementto slaughterJews and
Bolsheviks. Throughthe visual device that we have come to know quite
well, the viewer, symbolically affronted and threatened by the Jewish
commissar,is urgedto take a quiteliteralrevenge,by re-enactingan all-too-
familiarevent - a pogrom. The import of this reversal of Apelles's lost
depiction of Alexander the Great, possibly inspired by the Polyphon
Musikwerkeposter, is clear. The embodimentof authorityand legitimate
power has been turnedinto a targetof hatred.

This shift bringsus, once again,to the receptionof the recruitmentposter.

'The whole country',a biographerof Kitchenerwrote, 'wassoon placarded
with posters depicting Kitchenerin the characterof Big Brother, with a
Field-Marshal'scap, hypnoticeyes, bristlingmoustache,a pointingfinger,
and the legend "YourCountryNeeds YOU".'63
'In the characterof Big Brother':thispassingreferenceto GeorgeOrwell
deservesa more seriousscrutiny.At the very beginningof Nineteen Eighty-
Four (1949) the readeris confrontedwith the descriptionof

[a] coloured poster, too large for indoor display,. . . tacked to the wall.
It depicted simplyan enormousface, more than a metre wide:the face
of a man of aboutthirty-five,with a heavyblackmoustacheand ruggedly
handsomefeatures... It was one of those pictureswhichare so contrived
that the eyes follow you about when you move. BIG BROTHER IS
WATCHINGYOU, the captionbeneathit ran.64

Eric Blair,who later took George Orwellas a pen name,was born in 1903,
in India. He moved to Englandwith his familyin 1907.The passage I just
18 HistoryWorkshopJournal

quoted is obviouslybased on a childhoodmemoryof the Kitchenerposters

scatteredall over Englandin the fall of 1914.On 2 October1914,the eleven-
year-oldEric Blairpublishedin a local newspaperhis firstpiece, a patriotic
poem whose end echoed Kitchener'sappeal:

Awake! YoungMen of England,

For if, when your Country'sin need
You do not enlist by the thousand,
You trulyare cowardsindeed.

Two years later Blair published another poem, entitled 'Kitchener',to

mournthe field-marshal'sdeath.65
Thereis no need to recallthe role playedin the novel by the imageof Big
Brother,eitheras a posteror fromthe telescreen.66 In the lightof whatI have
said thus far, it is impossibleto miss in this passagea distant(but distinct)
echo of Pliny on the image of Minerva'who viewed the viewer no matter
wherehe lookedfrom'.Is the echo director indirect?An answerto thisques-
tion shouldtake into accountanotherpassageof Nineteen Eighty-Four:

A new posterhad suddenlyappearedall over London.It had no caption,

and representedsimplythe monstrousfigureof a Eurasiansoldier,three
or four metreshigh,stridingforwardwith expressionlessMongolianface
and enormous boots, a sub-machine-gunpointed from his hip. From
whateverangle you looked at the poster, the muzzle of the gun, magni-
fied by the foreshortening,seemed to be pointed straightat you. The
thing had been plasteredon every blank space on every wall, even out-
numberingthe portraitsof Big Brother.67

ThisEurasiansoldieris undeniablya link to be addedto the seriesof images

descending from Apelles's painting, 'representingAlexander the Great
holdinga thunderbolt'.Orwellmay have been familiarwith Pliny'spassage.
But thereis another,more intriguing,possibility:that Orwell,in placingside
by side Big Brotherand the Eurasiansoldier,the all-seeingimage of auth-
ority and the aggressiveimage of threat,was in fact unfoldingthe hidden
polarityunderlyingthathighly-charged primevalimage,the figurewho faces
the viewer.But as readersof Nineteen Eighty-Four willrecall,the waragainst
Eurasiais a staged event. Like the poster Kitchenerthat blotted out the
General,the televisedwaris more authenticthan the real one. Big Brother
probablydoes not exist:he is a name, a face, a slogan- like a poster adver-
tising a commercialbrand.In 1949, when it was first published,Nineteen
Eighty-Four waswidelyreadas a Cold-Warbook;its referencesto the Stalin-
ist terrorseemed self-evident.Half a centurylater,the descriptionof a dic-
tatorshipbased on electronicmedia and psychologicalcontrolcan be easily
accommodatedto a different,not entirelyimpossiblereality.
 'YourCountryNeeds You' 19

~~~~~T TV

Fig. 20. Advertisement for a Polyphon Fig. 21. 'Vmnytsa', German poster
Musikwerke typewriter, Germany, c. 1908. issued during the occupation of
the Ukraine, 1944.

LordKitchener'sposter (Fig. 1) led us to Eric Blair'schildhoodmemories.

Thereis no need to insiston the historicalrelevanceof memories,a domain
of researchwhich Raphael Samuelforcefullymade his own. Memoriesare
the stuff of history,especiallyfor a journallike HistoryWorkshop,whose
aim has been to bring the boundariesof professionalhistorianscloser to
people'slives. This is an aim I am deeply sympatheticwith. But is history-
historyas historicalwriting- coextensive with memory?Notwithstanding
the eloquence of Samuel'sargumentson this issue, I feel closer to those
who, following Maurice Halbwachs, insist in stressing the difference
between memory and history.68The case study I have just submittedto
you may throw some light on this difference.To decipher the subliminal
messagesconveyed by Lord Kitchener'sposter we need a view from afar,
a perspective removed in time, a critical distance: attitudes which are
certainlynourishedby memory,but are independentfrom it.

NOTES AND REFERENCES

This is a revised version of the Raphael Samuel Memorial Lecture I delivered in London in
October 2000. Many thanks to Samuel Gilbert for his linguistic advice.
1 Raphael Samuel, Theatres of Memory, I: Past and Present in Contemporary Culture,
London, 1994, p. 27.
2 Alfred Leete. A Woodspring Museum Publication (exhibition catalogue), Woodspring
Museum, Weston-super-Mare, 1985, p. 11. But see also E. S. Grew and others, Field-Marshal
Lord Kitchener. His Life and Work for the Empire, 3 vols, London, 1916, particularly vol. 3,
p. 221 (by G.4eorge] T.[urnbull]): '"[Kitchener] was not a man, but a poster . . ." Justice to the
20 HistoryWorkshopJournal

memoryof the late Sir ArthurMarkhamrequiresthe admissionthat he had said that too,
adding:"He was a very good poster".'
3 The Times, 3 Aug. 1914.
4 G. W. Steevens, WithKitchener to Khartoum, quoted by H. Begbie, Kitchener Organizer
of Victory,Boston and New York,1915,p. 45.
5 H. D. Davray, Lord Kitchener: His Work and Prestige, English transl. 1917, pp. 34 ff.
6 Davray, Lord Kitchener, p. 41.
7 P. Magnus, Kitchener: Portrait of an Imperialist, London, 1958, p. 277.
8 'Lord Haldane or Lord Kitchener?',The Times,5 Aug. 1914. See also D. Sommer,
Haldane of Cloan. His Life and Times, 1856-1928, London, 1960, pp. 307-10.
9 Kitchenerattendeda Councilof Waron 5 Aug.,in the afternoon,beforebeingformally
appointed:V. W. Germains('A Rifleman'),The TruthAboutKitchener,London,1925,p. 43.
10 J. L. Thompson, Northeliffe. Press Baron in Politics, 1865-1922, London, 2000, p. 224:
'A decisionviewedin some quartersas a triumphfor the Northcliffepress'.Magnus,Kitchener,
p. 277:'He was desperatelyanxiousto avoid a summonsto join the governmentas Secretary
of War'.
11 The Times, 5 Aug. 1914.
12 TheTimes,7 Aug. 1914.EricField,who claimsto havewrittenthe appealpublishedon
5 August,saysthatKitchenerrevisedit by insertingtwo sentences:'LordKitchenerneedsyou'
and 'God save the King'at the end (E. Field,Advertising:the ForgottenYears,London,1959,
pp. 28-9, ill. pp. 134-6).Fieldrefersto the appealpublishedon 11 August;he does not mention
the intermediateversionwhichappearedon 7 August.
13 5.000.000 Men, Published Solely for the Benefit of the Lord Kitchener National Memorial
Fund and the British Red Cross Fund, London, 1916 (with a text signed by Arthur Conan
Doyle). On 'Kitchener'sdivisions'see SirG. Arthur,Kitcheneret la guerre(1914-1916),Paris,
1921,p. 43. For a fully-documentedaccountsee P. Simkins,Kitchener'sArmy:the Raisingof
the New Armies, 1914-16, Manchester, 1988, pp. 75, 169 and throughout.
14 H. G. Groser, Lord Kitchener. The Story of his Life, London (1901), new updated
edition 1914,p. 145 (T. P. O'Connor).
15 Grew and others, Field-Marshal Lord Kitchener, vol. 1, p. 11.
16 H. Begbie, Lord Kitchener,Boston and New York1915,p. 99.
17 Davray, Lord Kitchener, p. 34.
18 M. Brown, The Imperial WarMuseum Book of the First World War,London, 1991, p. 42.
19 For a differentpicturesee Simkins,Kitchener's
Army,pp. 79 ff.
20 On the Italian poster (by A. L. Mauzan,1917) and the Germanposter (by J. U.
Engelhardt,1919,for the new Republicanarmy)see P. Paretand others,PersuasiveImages,
Princeton,1992,ill. 54, 155.
21 M. Timmers(ed.), ThePowerof thePoster,London1998,p. 160ff. On the Sovietposter
(made by D. Moor in 1920,and reworkedby the same painterin 1941)see F. Kampfer,Der
rote Keil. Das politische Plakat, Theorie und Geschichte, Berlin, 1985, pp. 94-5.
22 See the richevidencepresentedby Simkins,Kitchener'sArmy,p. 165ff.
23 Translatedas 'emotive formulas'in A. Warburg,The Renewalof Pagan Antiquity,
transl.D. Britt,Los Angeles, 1999.
24 Warburg,Renewal,p. 82.
25 E. H. Gombrich, Aby Warburg:An Intellectual Biography, London, 1970, pp. 320-1 and
throughout(see index under Pathosformelnand polarity)based on Warburg'sunpublished
notes;M. Barasch,'PathosFormulae:Some Reflectionson the Structureof a Concept'[1985],
in his Imago Hominis. Studies in the Language of Art, New York, 1994, pp. 119-27.
26 K. Rathe, Die Ausdrucksfunktion extrem verkurzter Figuren, London, 1938 (Studies of
the WarburgInstitute),p. 52. RathequotesfromL. Volkmann,Das Bewegungsproblem in der
bildendenKunst,Esslingen a. N., 1911, p. 21 ff. (The referenceto Pliny is missingin the
previouseditionI was able to consult,Esslingen1908,p. 14).
27 'Fuit et nuper gravis ac severus idemque floridus tumidus pictor Famulus. Huius aut
Minervaspectantemspectans, quacumqueaspiceretur'(Plinius, NaturalisHistoria,transl.
H. Rackham,London, 1961, Loeb ClassicalLibrary;the translationhas been modified).
0. Rossbach in RE, 6, col. 1985 suggests that some mechanicaldevice was implied (see
D. Freedberg,ThePowerof Images,Chicago,1989,pp. 292-3). This seems unlikely.
28 '[Apelles]pinxitet AlexandrumMagnumfulmentenentemin temploEphesiaeDianae
vigintitalentisauri,digitieminerevidenturet fulmenextratabulamesse;legentesmeminerint
omnia ea quattuor coloribus facta ...' (Plinius, Naturalis Historia, transl. H. Rackham,
London,1961,Loeb ClassicalLibrary).
 'Your Country Needs You' 21

29 'Pausias autem fecit et grandes tabulas, sicut spectatamin Pompei porticu boum
immolationem.Eamprimusinvenitpicturam,quamposteaimitatisuntmulti,aequavitnemo.
Ante omnia,cum longitudinembovis ostendivellet, adversumeum pinxit,non traversum,et
abundeintellegituramplitudo.'(Plinius,NaturalisHistoria,transl.H. Rackham,London,1961,
Loeb ClassicalLibrary).
30 Quoted by C. Haste, Keep the Home Fires Burning. Propaganda in the First World War,
London,1977,p. 55.
31 S. Stewart, Lifting the Latch: a Life on the Land, based on the life of Mont Abbott of
EnstoneOxfordshire,Oxford,1987,pp. 73-4 (I am verygratefulto Alun Howkinsfor passing
this piece of evidence to me). See also F. L. Goldthorpe'sunpublishedmemoirquoted by
Simkins, Kitchener's Army, p. 172:

The accusingfingerof Kitchenerstabbedme at every bill-posting,and tales of German

atrocitiesand strickenBelgiumdinnedinto my ears daily.I supposeit was a combination
of these manyurgingswhichsent me to the local drillhall on November15th.My age was
then 171/2.

32 Davray,LordKitchener,p. 55 (see alsoE. H. Gombrich,ArtandIllusion,London,1962,

p. 96).
33 Nicholasof Cusa,Opera,Parisiis1514,vol. 1, reprint,Frankfurta. M. 1962,c. XCIX r:
see E. Panofsky,'Faciesilla Rogerimaximipictoris'(see note 34).
34 I follow the interpretationof E. Panofsky,'Faciesilla Rogeri maximipictoris'in Late
Classical and Mediaeval Studies in Honor of Albert Mathias Friend, Princeton, 1955,
pp.392-400;see alsoH. Kauffmann,'EinSelbstportratRogersvanderWeydenaufden Berner
Trajansteppichen',Repertorium 39, 1916,pp. 15-30;H. Beenken,'Figura
fir Kunstwissenschaft
cuncta videntis', Kunstchronik iv, 1951, p. 266; A. Neumeyer, Der Blick aus dem Bilde, Berlin,
1964,p. 40 f.
35 Nicholasof Cusa,Operavol. 1, c. XCIXr:'et quisquevestrumexperieturex quocunque
loco eandeminspexerit,se quasisolumper eam videri'.
36 M. Bettini,'TraPlinioe Sant'Agostino:Petrarcae le artifigurative',La memoriadell'
antico,ed. S. Settis,vol. 2, Torino,1984,pp. 221-67.
37 AndreaDe Marchikindlyshowedme the photographof a painting(probablyVenetian,
17th-18thcentury)from the Saibene collection,depictingan archerwho points his arrow
towardsthe viewer.
38 Plinio, Historianaturale,transl. C. Landino,Venetiis, 1476:'Pare che le dita sieno
rilevateet el fulgoresia fuoridella tavola. . .'
39 The illusionisticallypaintedcartellino,painted,accordingto the evidencegatheredby
X-rayphotographs,after the reworkingof Christ'shand,reads:'millesimoquatricentessimo
sexstage/simoquinto VIIIa indi Antonellus/Messaneusme pinxit' (1465 eighth indiction
Antonellusof Messinapaintedme). The date based on Jesus'sbirth- 1465- is contradicted
by the date based on the indiction(a fifteen-yearfiscalcycle inventedin Egypt)whichpoints
either to 1460or to 1475.Art historiansattemptto solve the contradictionin differentways.
GiovanniPrevitalihas convincinglysuggestedthat 1475fits the best with Antonello'sstylistic
evolution('Da Antonelloda Messinaa Jacopodi Antonello.1. La datadel Cristobenedicente
dellaNationalGallerydi Londra',Prospettiva20, 1980,pp.27-34). See alsoF. SricchiaSantoro,
Antonello e l'Europa, Milano, 1986, pp. 106, 162.
40 L. Dolce, Dialogo della pittura... intitolato l'Aretino, Venezia, 1557, c. 37 r (quoting
Landino'stranslation).Pliny's passage is mentioned,in a different perspective,in E. H.
Gombrich,TheHeritageof Apelles, Oxford,1976 (Italiantransl.,M. L. Bassi, Torino,1986,
p. 21).
41 E. H. Gombrich,'The Leaven of Criticismin RenaissanceArt', in Art, Scienceand
Literaturein the Renaissance,ed. C. Singleton,Baltimore,1967,pp. 3-42 (reprintedin The
Heritageof Apelles,Oxford,1976;Italiantransl.M. L. Bassi,Torino1986,pp. 154-77).
42 Michelangelo's Creation of Sun and Moon is reproduced by J.J. Tikkanen, Studien aber
den Ausdruck in der Kunst, I: Zwei Gebarde mit dem Zeigefinger, Helnsigfors, 1913, p. 77, Abb.
108;on pp. 44-98 ('Das Zeigen als kunstlerischesAusdrucksmotiv': a preliminary,but still
valuablesurvey).
43 On Michelangelo'ssonnet about his work on the Sistine Chapelceiling see I. Lavin,
'Berniniand the Art of SocialSatire',in Drawingsby Gian LorenzoBernini,ed. by I. Lavin,
Princeton,1981,pp. 26-64, especiallyp. 34 (but my conclusiondiffersfromLavin's).
22 History Workshop Journal

44 J. Cox Rearick,TheDrawingsof Pontormo,New York,1964,vol. 1, p. 247;vol. 2, ill.

241 (about 1525,stylisticallyclose to the Supperat Emmaus).
45 I. Lavin, 'Caravaggio'sCallingof Saint Matthew:the Identityof the Protagonist',in
Lavin, Past-Present. Essays on Historicism in Art from Donatello to Picasso, Berkeley, Los
Angeles, Oxford,1993,pp. 84-99, especiallyp. 95.
46 Tikkanen,Studien,p. 44, mentionedthe presence of the pointingfingerin publicity
(withoutfurtherindications).A. Chastel('L'artdu geste a la Renaissance',now republished
in his Le gestedansl'art,Paris,2001,p. 39) comparesearlysixteenth-century
paintings,showing
figuresglancingbackwardat the viewerandpointingat the scene, andmodernpostersdirectly
addressingthe viewer.But the differencebetweenthe two gesturesshouldnot be overlooked.
47 H. Bridgewater, Advertising or the Art of Making Known. A Simple Exposition of the
Principles of Advertising, London, 1910, p. 15.
48 Bridgewater,Advertising,pp. 1-2.
49 Bridgewater,Advertising,p. 30.
Boston, 1915,pp. 114-5.
50 S. R. Hall, Writingan Advertisement,
51 Timmers (ed.), Power of the Poster, p. 160 ff.
52 A. Leete, Schmidt the Spy and His Messages to Berlin, London, 1916; Leete, The Work
of a PictorialComedian,London,1936(whichI have not seen;the copy at the BritishLibrary
has been destroyed). See in general Alfred Leete. A Woodspring Museum Publication
(exhibitioncatalogue).
53 Hassall'sposter is reproducedin Timmers(ed.), Powerof the Poster,p. 181. See also
W. S. Rogers,'The ModernPoster:Its Essentialsand Significance',in LondonJournalof the
RoyalSocietyof Arts,23 Jan.1914,pp. 186-92,on humorousposters:'TheSkegnessposterby
Hassall,withthe title "Sobracing"is typical,andonce seen is neverforgotten'(republishedin
L'affiche anglaise: les ann&es90, Paris, 1972).
54 Size of the originalposter:75 x 50 cm.
55 R. Walton,'Fourin focus',in Timmers(ed.), Powerof the Poster,p. 164.
56 OsbertSitwell,GreatMorning(1948),p. 264 (quotedby Magnus,Kitchener,pp. 276-7).
57 Socialist imagery sometimes referred,either explicitly or implicitly,to Kitchener's
poster:see Herald'scartoonof 20 Feb. 1915 ('Kingand Countrydo not need you! Desist!')
reproduced in J. M. Winter, Socialism and the Challenge of War:Ideas and Politics in Britain
1912-1918,London, 1974, plate 9 (between p. 119 and p. 120). Another example (kindly
broughtto my attentionby M. AndreDelord) is a posterby Niverwhichthe FrenchSocialist
party used in the 1936 elections:a workerpointinga threateningfingersays 'C'est bientot
qu'onva r6glerles comptes'.
58 'Halt!Sie durfennichtehervoruberals bis Sie gelesenhaben,dassdie Schreibmaschine
Polygraph,ein deutsches,erstklassigesFabrikatist' (here reproducedfromL. Volkmann,Das
Bewegungsproblem, Esslingen, 1908, Abb. 10). Both K. Rathe (Die Ausdrucksfunktion, p. 55
note 39) and F. Kampfer (Propaganda politische Bilder im 20. Jahrhundert, Hamburg, 1997,
pp. 78-80) referto the PolyphonMusikwerkeposteras a precedentfor the Vinnytsaposter.
59 Bridgewater, Advertising. p. 15.
60 Gombrich,Aby Warburg,p. 80: 'Annahmedes Kunstwerkesals etwasin Richtungauf
den ZuschauerfeindlichBewegtes'.Warburg,as Gombrichnotes, reworkedan idea he had
foundin a book whichhad a greatimpacton him:T. Vignoli,Mitoe scienza,Milano,1879.
61 J. Auerbach,'ChasingFilm Narrative:Repetition,Recursion,and the Body in Early
Cinema',CriticalInquiry,26 (2000),pp. 798-820.
62 F. Kampfer, Propaganda politische Bilder, refers to I. Kamenetsky, The Tragedy of
Vinnytsa:Materials on Stalin's Policy of Extermination in Ukraine (1936-1938), Toronto, 1989,
whichI have not seen.
63 P. Magnus, Kitchener: Portrait of an Imperialist, p. 288.
64 G. Orwell,NineteenEighty-Four,Harmondsworth,
2000,p. 3.
65 G. Orwell, A Kind of Compulsion, 1903-1936: the Complete Works, ed. by P. Davidson,
vol. 10, London, 1998, p. 20. J. Myers, Orwell, Wintry Conscience of a Generation, New York,
2000,p. 23, connectsthe firstpoem to Kitchener'sposter (but not to NineteenEighty-Four).
66 On 14 June 1940,Orwellcomplainedabout'the absenceof any propagandapostersof
a generalkinddealingwiththe struggleagainstFascism,etc.'comparableto those he hadseen
in Spainduringthe civilwar (quotedin Timmers(ed.), ThePowerof the Poster,p. 240).
67 Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four, p. 156.
68 Samuel, Theatresof Memory, pp. ix-x; M. Halbwachs, Les cadres sociaux de la memoire,
Paris,1927(new edn, 1952).