A Comparative Study on Political Posters in Iran and Poland between 1945-1970 / 1976-1986

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 Faculty of art, Shahed University, Tehran, Iran.

2 art research, art, shahed university, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

Human societies have always had different political, economic and cultural relations since the beginning. In the meantime, societies without any geographical boundaries were able to establish different social relations. Iran and Poland are among the countries that have had various cultural and artistic relations throughout history. Poland, which is among Eastern Bloc countries, was directly influenced by the thinking of the Soviet Union in intellectual, cultural and political areas during the Second World War. On the other hand, Polish posters belong to one of the brightest poster schools; a school that is more than 100 years old. Although the worldwide popularity of posters in Poland was achieved through cultural posters, it can be said that most of the designers of this school have had many experiences in the field of designing political and social posters. The first Polish poster designers were influenced by the Art Nouveau movement and designed with an illustrative approach. In general, Polish posters were a source of inspiration for Iranian designers at the mentioned period for two main reasons: First, the neighboring of the two countries with the Soviet Union and the influence that the socialist dominant ruling had put over the two countries. The second reason is the influence of Professor Morteza Momayez, as the leading designer of contemporary Iranian graphics, from the Polish school posters. Also, in the aftermath of the activity and influence of graphic artists, the political art of Iran after the Islamic revolution was an expression of the existence of anti-imperialist thinking with Socialist-Realist elements at that period. Throughout history, wars have always had a huge impact on social, political and cultural developments worldwide. Iran was also one of the victims of greedy governments. In this context, graphic design has played a major role in the visual environment of the public life due to its close relationship with socio-political issues of the society. This role is especially impressive in certain periods; as during the Islamic Revolution, and then during the imposed war, more attention was paid to art, especially graphic design, as an instrument used to propagate and to invite people to the fronts and to defend the country. The main area of ​​this article is the cultural and artistic relations of these two countries and in particular the political posters. Therefore, the present study aims to investigate the effects of Polish posters on Iranian political posters. According to this goal, the main questions of the research include: 1. what are the similarities between the political posters of Iran and Poland? 2- Has Iranian graphic designers been influenced by the Polish posters in the design of political posters? In order to answer the questions in this article, considering that Polish graphics became to fruition many years before Iran and became a school, the impact and influence of graphic design between Poland and Iran is firstly studied. Afterwards the discussions about the political posters of these two countries and the influence of Iranian designers from Polish designers have been specifically examined. This research is a descriptive-comparative study and the information was collected by library method. The results of the research show that the political posters of Iran and Poland, have similar features in terms of thematic features including labor, women, destruction and rebuilding of cities and freedom, as well as visual features such as elements including flower, color, writing, status of men and the flag, as well as the manner of implementation including the image-based approach, desire for realism in characters and openness in implementation. But gradually, with the passing of the early Islamic Revolution years, and with the beginning of the Iran-Iraq war, Iranian designers tried to address the Iranian-Islamic culture and traditions as much as possible. In this way, the use of space and elements of Iranian painting, motifs derived from Iranian-Islamic architecture, religious symbols, as well as ancient symbols such as flowers, and also elements that gradually become symbolic such as headband, plaque, blood trail, became prototypes of the work of Iranian artists. Therefore, it can be said that Iranian designers, especially during the years leading up to the Islamic Revolution and the early years after the victory of the revolution, were influenced by the characteristics and elements of Polish political posters. But gradually, given the ideals and goals of the Islamic Revolution of Iran, they tried to reduce the severity of these effects. As a result of the use of Iranian-Islamic elements, the elements of foreign culture have become altered in their works.

Keywords


Boczar, Danuta A. 1984.  The Polish Poster, Art Journal, Vol. 44, No. 1, pp. 16-27

Czestochowski, Joseph S. Fijalkowska, Janina. 1978.  Poster art in Poland : 1899-1978, Baltimore : Maryland Institute, College of Art

Zielinski, Florian. 1994.  The Rise and Fall Govermental Patronage of Art: A Socialogist’s Case Study of the Polish Poster Between 1945 and 1990, International Sociology, Vol. 9, No. 1, pp. 29-41