Are Movie Posters Works of Art?
The answer to that question is subjective. I consider movie
posters to be works of art. Although posters are made
to convey an advertising message, people use posters to decorate
their homes and apartments. The combination of text and pictures
is an artistic creation that can be appreciated in its own right.
If movie posters are art, how do they compare to other
works of art? Movie posters are classified as advertising
art, a subcategory or subclassification of the more general
category of popular art.
In classifying movie posters as popular art, some may dismiss
them as something less than works of art produced by traditional
fine artists. But that doesn't mean they aren't works
of art. It's simply a matter of perception. Poster artists are
no less artists than any other artists. The only difference is
how they choose to make a living. Traditional artists (e.g. Pierre-Auguste
Renoir, Pablo Picasso, Frederick Remington, Charles Russell,
Michaelangelo) painted portraits, landscapes or used the camera
(e.g. Ansel Adams) to produce images for sale to sponsors or
to the public. Poster artists were hired directly or commissioned
by movie studios to produce artwork to promote a film. In contrast
to traditional works of art, movie posters include credits, tag-lines,
and titles of movies. Artists such as Reynold Brown painted hundreds
of posters for the studios, while others, such as Bob
McGinnis created illustrations and painted covers for magazines,
books and movie posters, as well as created traditional fine
art paintings.
Posters that are created today, however, are rarely produced
from paintings. Most are made from photo composite, layered images
that are created by artists using sophisticated image editing
and manipulation software like Adobe's Photoshop. The paintings
of Drew
Struzan are an exception. Some of most beautiful and colorful
movie posters available today are created from his paintings.
More Information about Posters and Posters
as Art
For a lengthy discussion of poster art in general, see the
Smithsonian American Art Museum's online exhibit "Posters
American Style."
Examples of Posters used Commercially
19th and early 20th Century European advertising posters were
made to carry commercial messages, but many people recognized
that these posters had artistic merit. Some began to collect
them in much the same way connoisseurs of fine art collected
paintings, while others use them to decorate their homes, studios
and apartments. With the emergence of rock music in the 1960s,
posters
were printed in large numbers to advertise concerts. Even though
few of these posters are in print (available as full-sized reproductions),
rock and music posters today often draw inspiration from them.
Examples of Posters used Non-Commercially
Patriotic and Recruitment posters
of the American Civil War, Patriotic posters
produced during World War I, public service posters
commissioned by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) during
the Great Depression, and patriotic posters
of World War II are examples of posters used non-commercially.
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