Sweeping It Under The Carpet Analysis

Graffiti art has been around since the ancient Egyptian times. As graffiti art becomes modernized, painting techniques are charged along with the style for perfection. These techniques consist of sketching with pencil and paper and drawing on the wall. In the United Kingdom, a famous giraffid artist known as Banksy uses these techniques in his art. Banksy’s satirical art is usually controversial along with dark humor. One of his most recognizable pieces, commonly known as Sweeping It Under the Carpet, displays a woman dressed up as a maid who is lifting the wall to empty the dustpan. The original painting, Sweeping It Under the Carpet, alone represents how the Western part of world inconsiderately handles major issues. There is another painting …show more content…
In the painting Sweeping it Under the Carpet, the maid’s dustpan is full of dust from sweeping. She is looking in the general direction towards the viewer. As she is looking, she lifts the wall as an attempt to showcase where the dust will go. With the maid looking toward the viewer, the maid is projecting her response to the major issue that is happening with the dust representing the issue. The initial and accepted meaning of this art piece is to illustrate how people deal with major issues. Then there is the art piece of the man, Sid Vicious, with the red arrow in the corner. This piece originally does not have a meaning because Jef Aerosol usually draws real life regular people with a red arrow. When Sweeping It Under the Carpet and Sid Vicious are both portrayed on the same wall, the meaning is Banksy is a better artist than Jef Aerosol. Instead of painting over Jef Aerosol’s Sid Vicious, Banksy chose to showcase a more meaningful and cynical message compared to idolizing another artist. Banksy is using this piece in a form of sarcasm because he is portraying Jef Aerosol as a bad artist without showing any signs of a purpose in the …show more content…
The artist did use sarcasm effetely in his painting. In his painting, the uses of sarcasm consist of small details in the painting that the audience might not recognize at a first glance. Initially, in Banksy’s Sweeping It Under the Capet, the maid’s facial expression gives negative feedback because is expressing how she is not concern about the audience’s reaction. When the same maid from Sweeping It Under the Carpet is placed next to Sid Vicious, the context is altered because the maid loses part of the viewer’s attention towards the it. Instead the focus is evenly distributed between Sid Vicious and the