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Vietnam War Art Analysis

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confused on how to represent the war in their paintings. “Most of the artworks in the exhibition were made during the war, when it was unclear how long it might last and which side would win.” (Smithsonian American Art Museum, 2013 ). Nobody really knew who was winning while the war was happening so artists could not go painting heroic generals on horseback. They also knew because of all the lives lost and the other tragedies going on in their own country this subject matter could not be romanticised. Some art during this time period did however depict some scenes from the war but it was of human nature, soldiers and african americans striving for a better future during this horrible war time. Very common paintings during this time are of landscapes. The landscapes that were painted during this time depicted disasters; volcanoes erupting, comets splitting the sky, mountains crumbling, and storms ragging, all visual representations of the world itself coming to an end. Tattoos during this time period were very common within the working class. Men going …show more content…

During this time people feared the atomic bomb first created in 1945 and the hydrogen bomb invented in 1949. In fear of being hit by an A-bomb adults and children were getting their blood types tattooed on them incase of the need for an emergency blood transfusion. “ ‘I remember in Kindergarten lining up in the hallway and having a ‘gun’ placed on my left side and then feeling a prickly sensation,’ wrote Merle... ‘I had no idea that the little O- that is still visible today was part of an experiment in response to the fear of the A-bomb!’ ” (Kelly, John, 2017 ). These tattoos can be looked back on and it can be seen that people really were terrified because tensions were still high after World War II and citizens were preparing and trying to take the necessary precautions in case of an

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