During our discussion of iconic images- those rare moments, captured either in photograph, painting, or any artistic media, that embody a time in history and symbolize a specific concept related to the period- I immediately thought of the famous photograph, taken at the October 1967 protest at the Pentagon, of a male hippie placing flowers in the barrel of the guns of soldiers.
http://www.it-ru.de/forum/download.php?id=10120&sid=af8ca67892b94f463512cc04f785f020
Primarily, this picture serves as an icon for the Peace/Love Era, embodying the pacifist ideology of the hippies, the resistance of the government to the subculture, the political activism of the period, as well as the innocence of the era (one that soon faded, giving way to the more self-obsessed 1970's Disco/Glam Age.) Furthermore, this image displays how the connotative meaning of the flower- representing peace, love, and innocence- has now become a denotative one (we almost immediately associate these qualities with the flower.) Moreover, it embodies how the context of an image contributes to it's meaning; this image was originally published in Life magazine in the 1960's, giving it both credibility as a news source (documenting the protest) and significance as an icon of the time period.
This image is owned by Life magazine and likely copyrighted by them, so I would recommend speaking with that company before, say, making a painting out of it and showing it in an art gallery.
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