During World War 2, a time of great turbulence and uncertainty, many artists created pieces of propaganda to invoke a sense of patriotism in the American people. One of the most famous of these pieces, titled “Someone Talked!”, by artist Fritz Siebel is an excellent example of the coherence principle. This piece is a simple but striking picture of a young man, assumedly a sailor in our armed forces, drowning in the ocean with a two word caption in bold face – “SOMONE TALKED!” The man’s hand is pointing dramatically at the viewer, with the clear message of accusation for whoever was reading the poster and had given out the damning information.
The message in this painting is one which was much repeated in the WWII propaganda circuit. “Loose lips sink ships” was something that today’s society probably wouldn’t understand, but was very strongly emphasized throughout the war. There was a real concern that sensitive information would reach the hands of enemy spies, which in that time was extremely hard to prevent. This message was relayed through “Someone Talked” in a way which everyone could understand and relate to.
The audience for this message was fairly broad, as it targeted the American people, but this painting specifically seemed to be for those who could relate to the man in the water. People who had a brother, father, son, or even just a friend in the armed forces could not help but see them in the sad, accusing eyes of the man drowning in picture. It seems like this would be especially effective on the children of those in the armed services, who may not have understood the severity of the consequences that leaking overheard secrets might have. Placing myself in the shoes of a child whose father was a sailor, this image certainly gives me chills.
The dark, turbulent sea makes an excellent backdrop for this image, and adds a sense of foreboding which is impossible to ignore. The image of the man really tells us nothing about him, being only part of his head and one arm, but the context still makes him resonate with the viewer. His pointing finger, as mentioned previously, adds a sense of guilt for the viewer, even one such as me who could not possibly have been responsible for his plight. Finally, the two simple words, “Someone Talked!” pull the message together in a clear and simple way, with no distractions or extra dialogue trying to explain the situation.
The message in this painting is coherent to a fault, and does an excellent job of getting the urgency of secrecy across to the viewer. The artist, Fritz Seibel, knew his audience and created a powerful image which they could empathize with. The pointing finger and haunted eyes of the anonymous man drowning in a storm tossed ocean were all that the author needed to drive home his point, and indeed this work won him many awards as a result. It is easy for even me, a viewer who was born almost 40 years after the image was painted, to understand the urgency of the warning this poster portrays.