The visual culture of modern war: Photography, posters, and soldiers\u27 art in World War I France

This dissertation analyzes the transformation of French visual culture during the First World War. The outbreak of conflict upended traditional artistic hierarchies and entrenched new, popular media as war, mass culture, and modern propaganda merged for the first time. This study investigates the complex, dynamic mechanisms through which French society constructed a system of “real” and mythical representations that addressed and compensated for the overwhelming absences—personal, informational, and aesthetic, among others—occasioned by this first mass, industrialized conflict. The dissertation focuses on three types of images or objects that were new, or played newly salient roles, during the war: official and unofficial photographs; war posters; and art made by soldiers. It traces the emergence of these media, seeking to explain their ubiquity and their specific characteristics; how they functioned for their makers; and how they resonated at the home front. I argue that different objects and images resonated with the public based primarily upon their perceived authenticity; that propaganda was generated from below as much as from above; that privileging amateur and untrained artists contributed to a construction of the nation as inherently “artful”; and that while photography first established itself during the war as the medium par excellence for covering current events, hand-drawn images continued to offer a vital and psychologically necessary shelter from the conflict\u27s honors