Picture Writing

Rationale

Why study art history in a Spanish class? That's what students and administrators want to know. Spanish is one thing, art history bad enough—but art history in Spanish? Spanish is increasingly construed as a vocational skills class. Spanish is touted as an adjunct skill to add value to other vocational programs—something that allows a landscaper to be the boss of a team, something that allows a nurse's assistant to get a 12% percent shift differential above her regular pay. Why study art and design history within the confines of Spanish? Is it not enough to be able to give and understand orders in Spanish? ³ Analytical skills are critical for all types of high-level work. Faculties of visual observation and analysis are especially important. Effective presentation of technical data in a graph requires advanced visual analytical skills. ⁴

Moreover, media literacy—another name for the ability to use images, interpret images, and place images in context—is a relatively new emphasis in our comprehensive curriculum. While media literacy is usually construed in terms of electronic media, the truth is that almost every manufactured or artificially prepared surface that students see is designed or decorated in a way intended to influence their attitudes or behavior. They absorb, as we do, symbols and images telling them what to buy and how the things they buy establish social status. They are conditioned to obey these messages as unconsciously as we adults follow the yellow lines telling us not to drive into opposing traffic on the way to work. These symbols are created by professionals, professionals who have honed the tools of their craft in the tool shed of the fine arts and design. If students need to know one thing about images, it's this: art is all around us, and it's asking for your money. Art is everywhere, and it wants your brain.

Because the intended message in nationalist art is direct and unambiguous, a study of nationalist art and architecture is a good introduction for students with little media-literacy background. The artifacts chosen for study here have been selected for maximum relevance, both to their historical setting and to the present day. Out of a wartime population just shy of 24 million, over 1,020,000 men fought in Franco's armed forces; medals went home to every family, even when the men did not. ⁵ The question, "What side did your family fight on in the war?" (in the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939) is still a common topic of conversation for young Spaniards today. ⁶ The Valle de los Caídos is one of the most visited monuments in Europe; every Spaniard recognizes its profile as readily as Americans recognize the Statue of Liberty. Every Mexican knows the hundred-peso banknote and the Plaza of the Three Cultures with the adjacent Nonoalco-Tlatelolco housing project. These artifacts are as iconically Mexican as the Liberty Bell is American. The artifacts studied in this unit are not museum pieces; they are windows onto the living national political cultures and national identities of Spain and Mexico. As they explore the political uses of these artifacts in shaping public attitudes in Spain and Mexico, students should also become increasingly conscious of the influence images in their own environment hold over them. (See the section "Resources" below for links to images of these artifacts.)