tears,erasures,and inscriptions. UnlikeKurt Schwitters or Hannah Höch, Heart-
field never had anyinterest in exploring the ambiguity and multivalencere-
vealedthrough such textual rupturing and suturing.Rhetoricallyhis photomon-
tages are either for or against,animated by completeopposition or full
agreement; his default emotional style always involves struggle. Not surprisingly,
photomontage for him was synonymous with partisanship,avehicle for channel-
ing painful experiencesintoasingular outward emotion,rage,and translating
deep-seated antagonisms into simple political slogans. Heartfield’sunique con-
tribution to the proletarian dream can thereforebedescribed as two-fold: as a
historical casestudyonhow acommunist artist employs the discourse ofrage
to forge proletarian identifications–and does so againstalong Social Democrat-
ic tradition emphasizing peace and harmony;and asamethodologicalreflection
on the relationship between political emotion and artistictechnique that reeval-
uates the propagandistic potential of photomontage outside the familiar binaries
of manipulationand critique.
Nothing is better suited to retrace the formalmanifestations of Heartfield’s
productive rage thanhis sustained interest in the most symbolicallycharged
part of the working-class bodyand the proletarian bodypolitic: the hand. In
fact,SergeiTretyakov was the first to note the photomonteur’spreoccupation
with hands, concluding that,“in Heartfield, the hand plays an even more impor-
tant role in the composition thanthe face. Rarelydoes an artist managesowell
to conveythe appearance ofaperson through therepresentation of the hand.”⁴
The nineteenth-century workers’movements had made theraised fist theiroffi-
cial salute,apractice thatcontinues in civil rights and liberation movements to
this day. Workingwithin these traditions, Heartfieldrepeatedlyused hand im-
agesto address questions of labor and industry and juxtapose the conditions
of production in capitalist and communist societies.Toward the end of theWei-
mar Republic, hands and fists wereenlisted primarilytoexpress his full support
for the Communists and organize his unrelentingattacks on the National Social-
ists.
SergeiTretyakov,reprinted in Roland März, ed.,John Heartfield: Der Schnitt entlang der Zeit.
Selbstzeugnisse Erinnerungen Interpretationen, Eine Dokumentation(Dresden:Verlag derKunst,
1981), 311.
John Heartfield’sProductive Rage 303