Art lecture in my college: New York comics & Picture-Story Symposium
On Tuesday at 7:00pm, I joined an art lecture in my college in University Center, UL105. The lecturer, Stephen Norris discussed “Communism’s Cartoonist – Boris Efimov and Soviet Political Caricatures”. When I arrived in lecture room, it was not crowed and there were a few people inside. Stephen Norris is history and interim director of the Havighurst center for Russian and post-soviet studies. His exploration focuses on Russian visual culture and propaganda. He wrote of two books: Russian popular Prints, Wartime Culture, and National Identity. Boris Yefimov was Soviet political cartoonist best know for his critical political caricatures of Adolf Hitler and other Nazis Produced before and during the Second World War, and was the chief illustrator of the newspaper Izvestia. As I listened to the lecture and watched the presentation about Boris Efimov, I thought about his cartoon style and compared it to the Nancy comic style I learned about during another art lecture I attended at my college. I reflected that these two cartoon styles were quite different, because the animation artists decided to focus on different themes. Furthermore, they may have been affected by the political atmosphere of their country, as in the case of Efimov, politics was the sole focus in the works he created and shared. The Nancy comic strips on the other hand were more light hearted and had a child-like feel to them while Efimov’s works had a more serious message behind them. When I saw Efimov’s work, I thought about the Russian political climate such as the wars, and their long history such their changing of the capital. Efimov did not use primary colors in his work, instead he used classic colors, which is a prime example of Russian art technique. One piece of art that the lecturer presented that stood out to me was “Petliura Types” (1918). When I saw this piece, I immediately noticed that Efimov used deep red and blue colors in his figures. These are the two colors that are in the Russian national flag. I felt his focus on politics and had glimpse into the life in Russia during the civil war while he was living there.
