Twentieth century art reflects dramatic historical events. With the help of artistic means, the artists realized the traumatic experience, showed the fear, pain and anger that they experienced, illustrated horrific stories.

Anti-war art can be traced after the First World War. This event was a large-scale tragedy of the mass destruction of people. Many artists participated in the battles and at the end began to create works that protested against violence, imposed ideology and defended human rights and life.

The Second World War left even more shocks. Established rules and values needed to be rethought. The visual arts have also undergone great changes. Resistance to fascism has become a global movement. There was a general feeling throughout Europe, and placards often hung on ruined walls linking the fight against fascism with the fight against capitalism. The artists talked about overcoming post-war trauma, explored the problem of collective guilt, testified to horrific events. In the fifties, in addition to radical anti-war topics, works began to appear that turned to personal experience.

In the Soviet Union, anti-war and anti-fascist sentiments were linked by Stalinism and communism, the art of socialist realism becomes an ideological mechanism of influence.

In contemporary art, until recently, the emphasis was on raising awareness of the threat of a new war, working with themes of violence, memory and archives. But after the start of the Russian military invasion on February 24, 2022 on the territory of Ukraine, the anti-war movement resumed. Contemporary artists and activists actively showed their resistance to military action. Due to detentions and repressions, Russian authors find other ways to protest:

draw pacifist graffiti, go on “silent pickets” with inscriptions against the war on clothes, organize exhibitions of anti-militarist art, distribute stickers and posters, write pro-peace slogans on banknotes and lay flowers at the monuments of World War II, remembering the victims of military disasters.

Antiwarcoalition.art is an open online platform that collects international art statements against the war in Ukraine. The platform makes it possible to protest against dictatorship and authoritarianism, and also expresses solidarity with the victims of Russian military aggression on the territory of Ukraine. The initiators of the project were the "Ambasada of Culture" and Belarusian cultural figures: Anna Chistoserdova, Oksana Gurinovich, Valentina Kiseleva, Alexander Komarov, Lena Prenz, Antonina Stebur and Maxim Tyminko and Ukrainian curators Natasha Chichasova and Tatyana Kochubinskaya. Belarusian artists who took part in the project: Sergei Shabokhin, Alexei Lunev, Marina Naprushkina, Olga Sosnovskaya, A.Z.Sh., Daria Sazanovich, Roman Trotsyuk, Bergamot group, Vladimir Gramovich, Lesya Pcholka, Masha Svyatogor, Nadezhda Sayapina.