Painted Fake News

Paintings  of  Fake News.

Artists have frequently been persuaded ,bribed or coerced in painting pretty pictures of scenes that are not quite what they seem.You can see modern day examples of this coming from certain countries in the far east of jolly ,well fed workers who in reality have large sections of their population who are  starving.

 

     Helen Allingham  painted pretty pictures of cottages in the English countryside.   A simple cottager was usually standing by the door.The reality was that inside these cottages would be damp hovels full of dirty, hungry children. Washing, cooking facilities would be minimal, the water being fetched from that stream you can see shared with animals.There would be dirt floors  and a muddy unmade road outside.                                                  

Cottages, Helen Allingham

 These healthy looking mill girls enjoying a dinner hour were almost certainly posed in a studio for completion of the painting.The reality of their lives was deafness from the noise of the weaving machinery, rotten ,damaged teeth from the habit of chewing the end of broken threads to join them more easily.Damage to their lungs was appalling from the cotton fibres that wafted around them in the air they were breathing most of the time.

The Dinner Hour, Eyre Crowe

Under communist rule artists were obliged to show well fed ,happy workers like these construction site workers taking a break while pretty girls bring them their refreshments.Oppression,food shortages, grim living accommodation and constant fear was the reality of the dictatorships that governed their lives.

Russian Socialist Realism

  This is almost to ghastly to show. A charming rural setting while Hitler, painted in a flattering pose tries to show his affection for a small girl .At least the artist showed her struggling to get away.

Nazi Fascist Realism