Hello there and welcome back from winter break! As I said in my last post I went to the Brooklyn Museum over our winter break and saw so many amazing pieces of art! So today I wanted to talk about another piece I saw in my time there titled “Remember Me? I was at Bataan” by Alexander Brook.
This painting really drew my attention because of how different it was to everything else in the exhibit. It’s so calm and simple but also holds so much in its message. The single figure seemingly looking straight at the viewer commands attention so I had to look deeper into it.
This is just another thing I love about Art History. Seeing a piece and loving it at just a surface level and then learning a backstory that opens up a whole new view is so incredible. One of the best things about art history is putting both your interpretations and feelings of an art piece and the history of it together into one understanding.
After doing some research after my visit I learned that the painting was originally used as propaganda during World War II. It was made around 1943 and at the time the U.S. government used images like this to motivate people back home to buy war bonds and help support the war effort.
The title of the piece references the Battle of Bataan in the Philippines where thousands of soldiers marched under terrible conditions not knowing whether they would live or die. So when looking at this piece you see one soldier, but knowing the back story you can almost imagine the thousands of soldiers this singular one is representing. Knowing this now, the painting holds a lot of weight and goes from a calm feeling piece to having a bigger meaning.
This is just another thing I love about Art History. Seeing a piece and loving it at just a surface level and then learning a backstory that opens up a whole new view is so incredible. One of the best things about art history is putting both your interpretations and feelings of an art piece and the history of it together into one understanding.
I hope you all enjoyed this post today and let me know what you think of this painting below!
Thanks!
~Marissa