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Banksy Final Essay - Bryan Pong
Banksy Final Essay - Bryan Pong
Banksy Final Essay - Bryan Pong
Bryan Pong
Professor Granillo
English 103
May 26 2019
Have you ever fallen so far in life that you think you can’t get up? By observing the
street art work of Banksy one can find that even angels can fall from grace. In the artwork
“Drunken Angel,” by Banksy, one can find elements of semiotics, aesthetic appeal, and color
psychology within it for the audience to interpret. The color psychology comes from the
contrasting black and white colors spray painted in an alleyway, while semiotics are shown in
the objects, the angel, and his actions. When analyzed this can show that even the best of people
can fall down and struggle. By using only a few contrasting colors, and powerful symbols,
The stencil painting has an overall tired, frustrated feel to it. The wings and halo can
mean good intentions, while the posture of the angel shows their best effort was not enough. This
art piece was done in London, a city that is recognized as one of the most popular and richest in
the world. Despite London’s wealth and allure, some of its inhabitant’s struggle with
By using the lens of semiotics there are several symbols or signs that come in to the mind
when viewing this art work. The Signifier “is the object that exists”(Rader) in the artwork and
the “signified is the meaning”(Rader) . The main symbol, an angel, is a representation that
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signifies something magical and wonderful. The angel - the signifier- seems to have fallen in to
tragedy. In religion, an angel is one that has good morals and ethics. By depicting this angel in a
fallen tragic situation, it is saying that society can be affected by different aspects in life. The
more people can relate to art piece the more impact it can have. This represents several angles of
society. Meaning people can view the angel as a lost soul or one that might be homeless.
A large population of homeless are prevalent in London. Just because they are homeless
it doesn’t mean they aren’t good people. Nearly 7,500 people sleep rough on the streets of
London every year. These people come from every walk of life, and many of them want to find
work. As the Angel depicts, hard efforts does not necessarily improve reality. By placing an
Angel that has fallen from grace into an alleyway, it challenges the perception that homeless
people are not any different from the rest of us. Homelessness begins when something bad
happens and you don’t have family or friends around to help. It could happen to anyone,
why someone may fall from grace and run into such poor circumstances. Relationship
breakdown, redundancy, poor mental health, alcohol or substance addiction, domestic abuse -
these are just some of the reasons why people end up homeless. For the most part, people don’t
choose to be homeless, they find themselves sleeping when they are facing a major crisis that
Being deprived of options can leave anyone in a situation they did not choose for
themselves. Perhaps, Banksy is looking to make those who are usually ignored or neglected
more approachable by putting wings and a halo on them. With support, people can leave
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homelessness behind. While there are many great nonprofits and city programs that are meant to
help support homeless people uplift themselves into better situations, many of them are
underfunded. Due to budget cuts and other contributing factors, projects or programs often
struggle to find the funding they need to do vital work for their communities.
Some more signifiers are the alcohol bottle and the lit cigarette. This shows the angel has
succumbed to drugs and has fallen from its graceful ideologies. Presenting a depiction of society
on how some people can be in a great place but then end up in worst of places due to
the influences of society. A third symbol is the structure that surrounds the stenciled painting. It
shows that the angel is either trying to hide behind walls or is stuck in a alley ways of a heavens
golden arches. Either way it signifies a dark place in which the angel has journeyed to sit in
isolation.
Banksy mainly uses white with a black background to situate a scene where he
creates a contrast of purity and negativity. “Colour is kind of energy which is effect to the mind
and emotional feeling.”(Kalia) The white angel is suppose to depict something of purity, while
the black background shows darkness. “Color has strong psychological influence on human
reactions” so these neutral black and white colors bring up contrasting ideas. Leaving us with a
representation of the negative concept surrounding something pure. The structure around the
initial piece is also a golden yellow which could mean they are the arches of heaven and he’s on
Along with semiotics comes great aesthetics. Banksy carefully places a distraught
angel on the historic London Bridge, a place where many people visit to bask in a communal
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environment. The Angels wings capture a person’s attention with their aesthetic appeal. While
aesthetic appeal is subjective, and in the eye of the beholder. The objects depicted can force the
audience to question their own feelings about an Angel that has fallen to substance abuse. For
one, the first thing a person might notice are the Angels beautiful wings. Most often, Angels are
thought of to be divine beings that evoke feelings of purity and innocence. Their wings allow
them to ascend towards the heavens into places that mortal man cannot. The Angel’s halo and
wings are quickly oppressed once the viewer is triggered by the Angel’s body language and use
of alcohol and cigarettes. Just as much wings and a halo evoke aesthetic appeal of beauty, so do
We see both beauty and sadness intertwined, carefully placed in one of the richest cities
in the world. The value of aesthetic appeal relies on the person who sees it. To some, it’s an
ironic image of a defeated Angel, down on their luck. To others, it may bring attention to the
homelessness that riddles the city of London. To another person, it brings about the pain that is
associated to substance abuse. Regardless of the value, each person may interpret the tired and
defeated Angel very differently. Perhaps the Angel is just like any one of us, needing a drink and
a drag from a cigarette to decompress from life’s struggles. The beauty of the art is that it
represents a struggle in life, bringing mortal man and divine creatures closer together. As one
looks at the artwork, it makes you think about how this one angel ended up in this particular
situation.
The famous philosopher Immanuel Kant “located the distinctive features of the aesthetic
in the faculty of ‘judgment,’ arguing that we take up a certain stance toward objects and separate
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them from our scientific interests and our practical concerns. The key to the aesthetic realm lies
therefore in a certain ‘disinterested’ attitude, which we can assume toward any object and which
can be expressed in many contrasting ways.”(Britannica) This aligns with how Banksy uses
Angel wings and a halo to clash with a bottle of alcohol and a cigarette. The objects themselves
evoke emotions to each person independently from another. Where one person may view this
piece of art as witty, humorous, and clever. Another person may view the symbolism as
troublesome, traumatic, and relate the depiction of a person abusing substances or down on their
luck as relatable and potentially too close to home. These emotions that are evoked by the piece
of art draw out “sentiments from the audience that derives from the sole source of values that
someone or from some point of view. Different people apply the word to quite disparate objects
for reasons that often seem to have little or nothing in common. It may be that there is some kind
of single underlying belief that motivates all of their judgments. It could also be, however, that
the term beautiful has no sense except as the expression of an attitude, which is in turn attached
by different people to quite different states of affairs.”(Britannica) For example, the halo and
wings alone may not be considered beautiful until they are paired with the bottle of alcohol and
the cigarette. Such a raw and beautiful expression of an angel’s demise might bring comfort to
some. Giving us a truth that not all beautiful things can sustain their pleasing appearance forever.
The comfort that, much like mortal man, Angels can succumb to defeat, sadness, and a toxic
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vulnerability that we thought were only reserved for the homeless population that live under a
To truly appreciate Banksy’s piece of art, one must not necessarily need to have a taste
for such art, or understand aesthetic concepts. Banksy’s art is unfiltered and raw. As a graffiti
street artist, he throws out the traditional concepts in which art is perceived or enjoyed. Instead,
he carefully places his images in areas that we may not expect. Encouraging us to think hard
about what we are saying, trying to make sense of the paradoxical and juxtaposing images or
objects that he carefully places together. To truly appreciate Banksy’s aesthetic, we must also
appreciate the realities of substance abuse and homelessness. There must be an awareness of the
rising homeless populations in our richest cities, the lack of support for those living in the streets
because of unaffordable housing or mental health issues. Aesthetics appeal only goes as far as to
capture the audience’s attention. Only after the audience has carefully studied the spray painted
stencil of an Angel slumped under a bridge smoking a cigarette, can they truly craft together the
clever contract is symbolic objects and how they’re tied to the medium that are the walls of
London. The theorist Hegel, claimed that “it is natural for us to seek a standard of taste; a rule
by which the various sentiments of men may be reconciled; at least, a decision afforded,
standard of taste, we are only confirming our sentiments while condemning another. This is
something that Banksy challenges us with head-on with his art. Our sentiments are quickly
challenged and we must tap into those that we condemn to formulate a new sense of awareness
In conclusion, the use of semiotics and aesthetics can help us to analyze the art piece
“Drunken Angel” by Banksy. The audience can compare things such as a fallen angel to a idea
of a homelessness, substance abuse, vulnerability, and a wealthy society that has abandoned
people in need. Several theorists explain how a piece of artwork can be beautiful while invoking
Works Cited
Silverman, Jonathan, and Dean Rader. The World Is a Text: Writing about Visual and Popular
Culture. Broadview Press, 2018.
Britannica Academics
https://ezproxy.canyons.edu:2519/levels/collegiate/article/aesthetics/106009
Marsh, Sarah. “Record Number of People Sleeping Rough in London.” The Guardian, Guardian
News and Media, 31 Oct. 2018, www.theguardian.com/society/2018/oct/31/record-number-of-
people-are-sleeping-rough-in-london.