Mobilisation

 

It is with great joy I can report that the Army has become rather addicted to my work, and this time not my oil painting but my ink drawings. So they have made me a full time soldier, by mobilising me. The Art of Influence, once called propaganda is very much in full swing, not as posters so much these days but on various kinds of social media. So because I have just about managed to draw whatever random ideas they come up with, they have seen fit to elevate me to full time. 

 

The Army does not like the word propaganda, but I think it is a neutral word. It can be used for good or bad but all art is obviously a point of view, and points of view are persuasive to one degree or another. 

 

When I paint a picturesque scene, it is because I am deliberately turning away from ugly modern views, thus glorifying the historic, the hand made and the natural. To glorify one thing is to oppose its opposite - mass production, generic design and the artificial. 

 

So when a freelance artist paints abstract work it is propaganda, fuel for modernists but repellent to traditionalists? Perhaps the difference is, whether or not it is state sponsored or painted on prospect? 

 

Perhaps when I am a freelance painter, I paint opinions on canvas, and when I work for the Crown I am a propagandist? 

 

So if painting for a state makes an artist a propagandist, am I so different from artists that are supported by the Arts Council? Either way it is very invigorating to paint such useful and influential work. I was drawing tanks at the age of 4 and now at 49 I am doing something very similar. 

 

God Save The King!