Chapter 12. Canada at the End of History
12.8 The Art of War
The invention of the smartphone has created the most photographed generation in history. Perhaps it is difficult to recall, as a consequence, how rare and special visual and audio images were in the past. The technology necessary to the creation and dissemination of photography and recordings was only just coming into being at the time of Confederation. Whereas, with very scarce exceptions, the pre-Confederation era was recorded on canvas, the post-Confederation period would be preserved in great variety of ways. Visual artifacts, therefore, constitute multiple histories: evidence of what they ostensibly document, evidence of changes in styles, evidence of evolving audiences and tastes, and evidence of changes in the technologies of representation, reproduction, and dissemination.
The late 19th century saw the rise of poster-art, as new printing technologies met new styles. The art nouveau movement gave way to Art Deco and, in between, commercial art became a growing part of an embryonic consumer economy. Whether for vaudeville or for serious theatre, CPR hotels or new household products, posters became increasingly colourful, far less fussy, and powerfully expressive.
Recruitment posters for the Great War remain iconic a century later. In the United Kingdom, Lord Kitchener’s face was so familiar to the public that his name was left out of the phrase “Wants You.” The Americans subsequently borrowed the stern look and the pointing finger for their famous “Uncle Sam Wants You” poster that came out in 1917. In Canada, the war imagery started in a jolly mood with a sense of adventure and little sense of actual fighting or danger (Figure 12.20).
As the war dragged on the messages and images changed. A psychological approach appeared, one in which men were shamed into enlisting or their women encouraged to give them a push (Figure 12.21).
Appeals were made, too, to ethnic groups. The relationship between the Irish and the British was fraught during the Great War but that didn’t stop Canadian recruiters from imposing their expectations of loyalism on the Irish-Canadian community (Figure 12.22).
The same could be said for Canadian Jews, whose experience of Christian-Canadian tolerance included Clifford Sifton’s efforts to keep them out of the country entirely from 1896 to 1906. The emancipation (removal of civil restrictions and barriers to public service based on faith) of the Jews in Britain in 1858 is echoed here (Figure 12.23) as the warrior-to-be announces, “You have cut my bonds and set me free — Now let me help you set others FREE!”
The artwork itself was evolving: 20th-century lettering and aerial combat, along with an entirely different representative style makes an appearance in this 1916 poster (Figure 12.24).
If recruitment posters could not do the job, then Victory Bonds might. The range of Victory Bond posters is staggering, and their complexity and colours are striking (Figure 12