War Refugees--Ally Dobson
Analysis
This painting depicts a series of horrific images, from showing a line of marching civilians in various states of despair with varying degrees of injury. This piece is very dark in nature, with a spiky mass in the top right corner of the piece that seems to grow closer and more ominous. The spiky mass seems to impede on the fleeing civilians and thus is driving them away from their homes that the spiky mass has overtaken and destroyed. All of these aspects come together to showcase the harsh realities of conflict such as war and the displacement of innocent civilians through these tumultuous times. There are 3 illuminated figures in the front of the crowd of civilians on the left side of the painting who seem to depict the Holy Family. The illuminated figures include a man pulling along a donkey which is carrying a woman dressed in pale blue who is holding an infant. This could showcase how the Holy Famliy went to return home with Jesus, the Son of Man, but war stopped them before they ever went home. It shows them being displaced and how even the Holy son was restrcited and effected by this evil.
There are people who could be depicted as soldiers clawing their way up to the mass of marching bodies which are in various stages of agony and despair having just been displaced from their homes. Some of the civilians are carrying wounded people where others themselves are injured. There are some that are carrying children, and one is even pregnant. This shows how no one is saved from human suffering, even if they aren’t the ones fighting the battles. This mass also seems to be the reason the refugees are fleeing, and the dark mass is a sign of the impending doom and destruction they are leaving behind. To the far left, an innumerable amount of people marches on, showing there is no beginning or end to the pain endured by the refugees during war. They are heading off into an uncertain future with their only goal to escape the chaos and terror behind them.
Context
Irving Norman grew up in Lithuania which at the time, was a country under the rule of Russia. He moved from his home city of Vilna to New York in 1923 after World War 1. He moved to California in 1934 and 4 years later went off to fight for Spain against Franco’s dictatorship in the Spanish Civil War. When he returned to the United States, he sought an outlet for all of the monstrosities he had witnessed overseas. He found that outlet in art, he studied with artists in San Francisco and traveled to Mexico to study the murals of other well-known artists.
Overall, his artwork portrays clone like people who suffer injustices at the hand of our own humanness. His themes revolve mainly around poverty, war, and capitalism. His paintings urge his viewers to take a look at the power dynamic and cruelty people face in their everyday lives and to look at the role they play within their society. His art began to grow in popularity after the end of World War II. He was under surveillance by the FBI for several years which hindered his artwork gaining popularity until the late 1950s into the 1970s.
A Closer Look
