Audrey Flack

Photorealism

World War II (Vanitas). 1976-77
Oil over acrylic on canvas, 96x96" - Private Collection

World War II is, in my opinion, Audrey Flack's most powerful work. Full of symbolism, contrasts, and insight, it tells an important story and draws in the viewer.
One of the genre of still life known as the Vanitas, which is an intellectual form of still life that always has a social message especially popular during the 17th century, World War II is surrounded by a Black border and includes a tight spectrum of colors. Flack’s goal was to tell an allegory of war, and to show the existence of pure evil as well as beautiful humanity. There is also a contrast in showing beauty and war existing simultaneously (Gouma-Peterson 82; Flack 78-81).
Flack did not want to show blood or injury, as she felt too much has been experienced already. She used bright colors that she could not have used if not speaking in metaphors: the intense hues coupled with intense emotion would have been too much to handle. She wanted to shock, and she added “sickeningly sweet pastries” to achieve this. The text is from a book on Polish Jews displaying trust in God that overwhelmed Flack and provided a good contrast to the black and white photograph of prisoners (Flack 78).
Audrey Flack wanted to engage the viewer enough to read the quotation and decipher the symbolism (Flack 81):

Silver dish: symbols of contemporary life.

Pastries: juxtaposed with starving prisoners to make people think, but actually raised guilt: we are eating when the prisoners did not. It is a contrast of those who have and those who have not.

The faces do not actual look like the photograph she used. Flack says there is something of herself in the painting.

Red drape surrounding the work: to look fiery.

Watch: a few minutes before 12, the final hour. also, to symbolize the healing power of time.

Blue chalice: the cup of sorrows.

Black and white prisoners: signifying time past, despair, memory.

Butterfly: liberation of the soul, and Flack also read that hundreds of butterflies took home in Auschwitz following the Holocaust

Candle: began “bleeding” as they were photographing the image as the wax melted onto the photograph

Rainbow border: all that is in the afterlife, outside.

Charred music: music of the spheres, melody flowing through time.

Pear: perhaps symbolizing loneliness and isolation.

Flack wanted "the ultimate beauty of the painting to surpass the subject matter" (Flack 81) and I believe she succeeded. The work shows the beauty of people coupled with the horror of war, but one isn't held back by that horror; instead it emphasizes the innate beauty of humanity.