
At first glance of “The Toy Soldier Abacus” it can bring about quite a bit of confusion. It appears to just be a hand using a counting machine, an abacus, to count the money. But there is a much deeper meaning to the painting by Pawel Kaczynsky. It is very clear that the hand with the pencil is moving each soldier and adding up something but what he is adding up confused me at first. After further examining the picture it began to make much more sense. The hand in the picture symbolizes the weapons industry, and that hand is calculating its profit in terms of the soldiers that have died on the battle field. The painting appears to be attacking the weapons industry as whole, and when I thought about it, the attack is warranted. The weapons industry makes all of their money because of war, and with the fear of war. With the biggest impact of war being death, that makes the weapons industry look repulsive. This picture uses symbolic details and an asymmetrical design to raise awareness not only about the human cost of war, but about the actual profits made by the weapons industry as well.

It is very obvious that Kaczynsky targeted the audience’s emotions to get his point across, which to me, is very effective. The way that the hand is counting up the money that it has made using the little toy soldiers, which represent the deaths of soldiers all around the world, hit me hard. This especially caught my attention when I realized that the toy soldier abacus is seemingly endless. If you look at the top of the abacus there is no end to it, which leads me to believe that the number of soldiers on that abacus can go up and up and the money that the weapons industry is making off of them will never stop. Not only did I feel sorrow for the soldiers that the world doesn’t think about enough, but I felt anger towards the companies in the weapons industry. This painting sheds light on what weapons industries may even hope for, war. This is absolutely unthinkable in my mind, yet it makes perfect sense. The only possible way these companies can make a profit is through war, and with money being as important as it is to these companies, they desire what to most is unthinkable.

Kaczynsky doesn’t really give the audience much background as to whether this painting is contemporary or not, however, that should matter little to nothing to the audience. The weapons industries have been selling guns, bombs, and many other methods of killing for hundreds of years. All the while they’ve been sitting back and counting up their money at the expense of the dead soldiers, which is represented in Kaczynsky’s painting. He conveys this message very clearly and persuasively with the hand that appears to be relaxed sliding the dead soldiers over while his money lays there on the table. 

The main purpose of this artwork is to not only spread awareness for the soldiers that have lost their lives on the battlefield, but to point out that it may very well be the weapons industries faults. We can also see how little is cared about soldiers in this piece, using them as an abacus and having them count the money for the rich weapon companies speaks volume about how replaceable they are and shows that they aren’t cared about nearly as much as they should be. The use of symbolism to show the human cost and the simultaneous gain of the weapons companies is very effective in the big picture of what the weapons industry makes money off of, and may even hope for. 
