Chicago Trip: Windows on the War

Intro to blog

On Saturday, October 14th Chicago, Illinois warmly welcomed three tour buses filled with eager MSU students. Ok, well maybe Chicago did't really "warmly" welcome us and maybe the students weren't so "eager" either, at least not with the early morning wakeup call the day before the Michigan Michigan State game and a long bus ride. But either way, we had arrived in Chicago. I have been to downtown Chicago numerous times before this trip but never experienced it the way I did on this class trip. I have always done the normal touristy things before like, visit Navy Pier, shop all of the famous stores, take pictures in "The Bean" and all the other exciting famous Chicago tourist attractions. But, one thing that I had never experienced, beside "The Bean," was the artistic side of Chicago. Every venue that we visited was a new and exciting adventure to me We started off in The Chicago Art Museum, went to the City Space Gallery, The Fine Arts Building, the MOCP Museum of Contemporary Photography, Arts and Artisans American Gallery, Blick, The Chicago Cultural Center, The Illinois Institute of Arts, and Millennium Park. What a busy day it was!

While in the Chicago Art Institute, the wing that grabbed my attention the most was the Windows on the War section. They had old posters and drawings used to recruit young men into the military for world war I and world war II. The poster that grabbed my attention the most was The Second Red Cross War Fund poster. At first when spotting this poster from across the room it just looks like the simple Red Cross logo floating in a war scene, but as I got closer to the poster I realized that it was actually a soldier carrying another injured soldier that a designer had colored and shaped differently to appear as a red cross. This poster was made by McClelland Barclay. This poster stuck out to me because of the Graphic work in it.