From the Toyama Prefectural Museum of Art and Design Poster Collection, we introduce posters featuring animals.
The posters from this exhibit, which include dogs, cats, birds, and fish, etc., feature a variety of living creatures. They convey a wide range of messages, adorably, humorously, and at times through howling and barking. The animals depicted in these posters are employed symbolically, their images, and characteristic forms utilized as figurative elements, etc.—stirring the imaginations of both creators and viewers alike.
Posters are both a form of media that communicate information to us, as well as vessels which transcend language and text, conveying their messages visually. The reasons that animals appear here are surely not just because of their familiarity to us, or because their images [so full of character] serve as fertile sources of inspiration.
Among the posters introduced in this exhibition, there are themes that question and interrogate—not only issues concerning the environment or animal protection, but concerns happening in human society as well, entrusted in the form of our beastly friends. For example, a poster featuring the dove—an image popularized as the symbol of freely flying birds and of peace—communicates not only our hopes for unity and pacifism, but also the difficulties of maintaining such accords.
Animals serve as a presence which transcend countries and regions, familiar to one and all. However, they do not possess words or languages, as we humans do. And thus, perhaps this is precisely why, when they appear on a poster, they have the ability to convey messages which supersede language.