Image: Pexels/Cottonbro Studios As a writer, I tend to lean on the written word. But I wouldn’t be much of a communicator if that’s all I relied on. Visual media can deliver powerful messages and prompt meaningful dialogue.
So I appreciate the experts who work in the visual realm. That includes classical artists who had something to say—something that resonates through the centuries.
Take William Powell Frith. He was a 19th-century English painter and pal of Charles Dickens. Like Dickens, Frith specialized in portraying the range of life in the Victorian era, including the disparities between rich and poor.
Two of Frith’s works caught my attention recently.
In “The Crossing Sweeper” (1858), a shoeless boy in tattered clothing, clutching a makeshift broom, pushes close to a well-to-do woman, pleading for attention. In Victorian London, crossing sweepers were poor people of all ages who cleared walkways through manure- and refuse-littered streets in hopes of a handout. But the woman in the painting isn’t interested. She gathers up her dress while studiously ignoring him, her expression a mixture of forced calm and a desire for escape.
“Poverty and Wealth” (1888) is more complex but tells a similar tale. On one side of a narrow street is a carriage with two young governesses and three children. The wealthy mother prepares to board, a porter following along with her belongings. Just a few feet away, poorly clad women and children gather, tightly clustered around a fish vendor. Most of the people in each group have their backs turned to the other, save for the porter’s wary look, the sad expression of a governess, and the resentful scowl of an old woman in the fish line.
I took many ideas away after viewing these paintings, the biggest being this: “If I don’t look, it’s not there” is an ageless—and deeply flawed—rationale.
Consider the plight of unhoused people. Like most of us, I’m appalled that the wealthiest country in the world has so many people facing homelessness. Shelters offer some relief, provided there are enough beds and staff. Even so, thousands of individuals and families live in their cars, in tents in the woods, or on park benches—from the youngest children to the oldest veterans.
Homelessness is an incredibly complex issue. There isn’t a single reason for it, so there isn’t one magic solution. Financial hardship, mental illness, addictions, domestic violence, discrimination, lack of affordable housing, lack of support services, lack of employment or employability, or a mix of any of these can leave a person homeless.
Even so, you’d think American ingenuity and compassion, fueled by knowledge and resources, could be brought to bear. If we could land humans on the moon with 1960s technology, we can tackle something like this in the 2020s.
Instead, we’d rather not look.
The sweeping of homeless encampments, notably in Washington D.C., gets justified with “public safety” and “stopping crime” or “keeping our streets clean” (a particularly insulting argument).
But in fact, it’s about managing perception. It’s about what we see and what we don’t. If we see that the benches and sidewalks are clear, homelessness isn’t a problem. If we see no tents in the woods, no panhandlers on street corners, then there’s no one in financial need. When looking away is impossible, we insist on seeing only what we want to see—often with help from those who select (or create wholesale) the images for us.
Homelessness isn’t the only issue we treat like this. Looking away “solves” lots of problems. Poverty. Climate change. Access to health care. The crisis in education. Unpleasant historical facts. Deficits and debt. Criminal behavior by politicians (unless they’re on the “other side”). Oppression. Injustice. And on and on and on.
What’s a communicator to do?
Again, as I often do in this blog, I come back to the need to be morally and ethically grounded. When we communicate, by whatever means, we must do so with transparency. Sometimes that means pointing out uncomfortable things—and, ideally, with a plan for addressing them, or at least a conversation on how to move forward together.
In the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz, the old man behind the curtain tries to get Dorothy and her crew to look away from him. He knew that, in seeing him, they would realize the truth: The Wizard was fake.
The painter Frith hoped that, in seeing the social divides he painted, his patrons would know the truth as well: People were in need, and the means to help was close at hand.
As communicators, and as consumers, we must have the courage to face reality as it is—and come together to bridge the divides.
So I appreciate the experts who work in the visual realm. That includes classical artists who had something to say—something that resonates through the centuries.
Take William Powell Frith. He was a 19th-century English painter and pal of Charles Dickens. Like Dickens, Frith specialized in portraying the range of life in the Victorian era, including the disparities between rich and poor.
Two of Frith’s works caught my attention recently.
In “The Crossing Sweeper” (1858), a shoeless boy in tattered clothing, clutching a makeshift broom, pushes close to a well-to-do woman, pleading for attention. In Victorian London, crossing sweepers were poor people of all ages who cleared walkways through manure- and refuse-littered streets in hopes of a handout. But the woman in the painting isn’t interested. She gathers up her dress while studiously ignoring him, her expression a mixture of forced calm and a desire for escape.
“Poverty and Wealth” (1888) is more complex but tells a similar tale. On one side of a narrow street is a carriage with two young governesses and three children. The wealthy mother prepares to board, a porter following along with her belongings. Just a few feet away, poorly clad women and children gather, tightly clustered around a fish vendor. Most of the people in each group have their backs turned to the other, save for the porter’s wary look, the sad expression of a governess, and the resentful scowl of an old woman in the fish line.
I took many ideas away after viewing these paintings, the biggest being this: “If I don’t look, it’s not there” is an ageless—and deeply flawed—rationale.
Consider the plight of unhoused people. Like most of us, I’m appalled that the wealthiest country in the world has so many people facing homelessness. Shelters offer some relief, provided there are enough beds and staff. Even so, thousands of individuals and families live in their cars, in tents in the woods, or on park benches—from the youngest children to the oldest veterans.
Homelessness is an incredibly complex issue. There isn’t a single reason for it, so there isn’t one magic solution. Financial hardship, mental illness, addictions, domestic violence, discrimination, lack of affordable housing, lack of support services, lack of employment or employability, or a mix of any of these can leave a person homeless.
Even so, you’d think American ingenuity and compassion, fueled by knowledge and resources, could be brought to bear. If we could land humans on the moon with 1960s technology, we can tackle something like this in the 2020s.
Instead, we’d rather not look.
The sweeping of homeless encampments, notably in Washington D.C., gets justified with “public safety” and “stopping crime” or “keeping our streets clean” (a particularly insulting argument).
But in fact, it’s about managing perception. It’s about what we see and what we don’t. If we see that the benches and sidewalks are clear, homelessness isn’t a problem. If we see no tents in the woods, no panhandlers on street corners, then there’s no one in financial need. When looking away is impossible, we insist on seeing only what we want to see—often with help from those who select (or create wholesale) the images for us.
Homelessness isn’t the only issue we treat like this. Looking away “solves” lots of problems. Poverty. Climate change. Access to health care. The crisis in education. Unpleasant historical facts. Deficits and debt. Criminal behavior by politicians (unless they’re on the “other side”). Oppression. Injustice. And on and on and on.
What’s a communicator to do?
Again, as I often do in this blog, I come back to the need to be morally and ethically grounded. When we communicate, by whatever means, we must do so with transparency. Sometimes that means pointing out uncomfortable things—and, ideally, with a plan for addressing them, or at least a conversation on how to move forward together.
In the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz, the old man behind the curtain tries to get Dorothy and her crew to look away from him. He knew that, in seeing him, they would realize the truth: The Wizard was fake.
The painter Frith hoped that, in seeing the social divides he painted, his patrons would know the truth as well: People were in need, and the means to help was close at hand.
As communicators, and as consumers, we must have the courage to face reality as it is—and come together to bridge the divides.
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