Thomas Nast Art Style Analysis

Thomas Nast was a political commentator, and he used his artwork to execute his ability. His artworks contained political ideas that he wanted to show, and he could change citizen’s public opinion softly through his works, such as he showed his political ideas to supporting the North during the Civil war and he showed his political ideas of abolishing the slavery.
Thomas Nast was a cartoonist for newspapers, at that time he created two symbolic political icons, the Republican Elephant and the Democratic Donkey. They were famous. Nowadays seldom people are remembering Nast, but they know what is the Republic Elephant and the Democratic Donkey. These two symbols are vividly shown the essence of the Republic Party and Democratic Party, and these

His Civil War artwork was clearly supportive of Lincoln. In other word, his art work was supporting the North. And in his work, the South was setting as a cruel and heartless enemy. Such as “Southern Chivalry” and “Quantrill’s Raid on a Western Town”. In these pictures, Southern soldiers played the part as the evils. They killed innocent citizens, raped the women, robbed the goods and ruined the house. “Quantrill’s Raid on a Western Town” showed these abuses most definitely, this picture was shown by the newspaper and it increased the rage of Northern citizens sharply. In one word, he was a successful political commentator, he played the political situation by showing the opinion of the vast masses out by using his artwork. I had to say that this was a powerful strength at that time and it could be a huge danger to the government. Maybe it was the reason that his popularity decreased day by day after the Civil War, because during the peace time, his ability could cause many problems from citizens and the government had to fix it or they would get in the biggest trouble ---antigovernment activities of the

Actually his work was staunchly supporting Lincoln, supporting Northern government and resisting the slavery both during the war and after the war. For example, after the Civil War, he drew a picture called “Compromise with the South”. This picture showed the title in a meaningful way, an union soldier who stood on the losing side was shaking hands with a proud rebel soldier, the rebel soldier put his boot on a tomb, there was a tablet in front of the tome and this sentence was engraved on it:“In Memory of Union Heroes Who Died in a Useless War”, and besides the tomb, a poor woman was crying. To be honestly, this picture burned passions in the North and made the South feel sick. Dramatically, Lincoln won the election two months later. It makes people think that this artwork helped Lincoln to victory the presidential election. Now the truth was covered by the time, but maybe there was some connection between these two things, this would be the power of the citizen’s