Peace Education: The Visual Artist’s Responsibility

Abstract

Peace is broadly defined as the absence of war, fear, conflict, anxiety, suffering and violence, and about peaceful co-existence. It has to do primarily with creating and maintaining a just order in society and the resolution of conflict by non-violent means. As beautiful as peace is, man has not allowed himself to enjoy real peace. There are numerous cases of religious intolerance, violence, genocide, wars etc. threatening human‘s corporate existence, not only in Africa but in many other parts of the world. This, therefore, means that everyone must be educated and enlightened about peace. Though, the visual image has been one of the most effective forms of human communication, it has not been intensively utilized in educating people to embrace peace. This paper therefore, while highlighting the artist‘s responsibility in peace education, also discusses some of their efforts in this respect. The paper also examines some artworks that address the theme of peace. The paper in examining the artworks, applies the stylistic and iconographic approaches. Artworks have served social ends – from heavy-handed propaganda to more subtle persuasion and didactic art. In treating the theme of peace in their works, artists use symbols and motifs which people are often familiar with.