Design analysis paper

http://seymourchwastarchive.com/collection/silent-march/
Matthew Justice
3A
I chose to do Seymour Chwast’s Silent March. In the picture I see Uncle Sam dead on the ground
and bleeding with the words around him “america’s shame ​gun violence​” and “guns kill 30,000
people a year”. Some big elements in the piece are the all capital letters the big red bolded words
gun violence. An apparent relationship in this piece is the three holes where uncle sam got shot
and the 30,000 people killed a year, and it could be said that its their blood that uncle sam is
bleeding.
The medium for this piece is oil paint. This piece’s distinctive feature is simple design and how
the words emphasize gun violence. The color of this piece consist of red,white,blue, black,and
brown with the background being black it makes the other color really pop especially the reds. I
think the coloring in this piece is even because even with the black background, uncle sam’s
body and the words are bright reds,whites, and blues take a lot of the space and attract the eye’s
attention.
The artist, Seymour Chwast clearly created this piece to draw attention to the issue of gun
control. The overall meaning of the work is that gun violence is literally killing america and a lot
of american blood is being spilt. The fact that the piece brings up the amount of people killed and
the bullet holes loosely corresponds with that amount also the used of uncle sam as the victim
when a random one would have worked as well.
In my opinion this is a good piece. I am judging it on its choice of colors, use of space and
interesting visuals with underlying meaning. The black background gives the image of an injured
and presumably dead victim even more emotion along with uses of bright reds for the blood.
There are external factors that influenced my decision main the increase in school shootings like
the Parkland, Santa Fe, and gun violence related incidents. The increase of events and awareness
for the gun control movement in the United States like the many walkouts, of which two my
school participated in. I am personally an advocate for stronger gun control laws because of ​2019
UNCC shooting​ A shooter on the University of North Carolina at Charlotte campus killed 2 and
injured 4 on the last day of classes and I am attending there in the fall