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Course: Modernisms 1900-1980 > Unit 6
Lesson 4: Nazi & Fascist visual culture- Troost, House of German Art and the Entartete Kunst exhibition
- Adolf Ziegler, The Four Elements: Fire, Water and Earth, Air
- Art in Nazi Germany
- Murals and Public Art in 1930s Rome
- The Mausoleum of Augustus and the Piazza Augusto Imperatore in Rome
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Troost, House of German Art and the Entartete Kunst exhibition
Paul Troost's the House of (German) Art, 1933-37 is discussed in relation to the Great Exhibition of German Art and the Entartete Kunst Exhibitions of 1937 in Munich. The House of German Art now exhibits international contemporary art in direct opposition to the original National Socialist intent. Created by Beth Harris and Steven Zucker.
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- How did the Italian Futurists, who were somewhat allied with Italian fascism, cope with German fascism's reactionist policies?(8 votes)
- and perhaps as the Germans drew on Roman and Greek classicism, Italy may have been perceived to be a source of the timeless, eternal qualities the speakers refer to; both fascist regimes seeking to return to some idealised glorious past.(3 votes)
- The diagram at3:20showing the relationships between different art movements--it that available elsewhere?(5 votes)
- found it: Alfred Barr's "Cubism and Abstract Art" 1936
http://lunday.com/?p=1202(8 votes)
- At2:45, the narrator talks about how the Germans were "looking back" to the the agrarian days; but could it be that they were actually "looking forward" to the agrarian days, I have heard some historians cite that one of the goals of Hitler's crimes against humanity was so that Germany could expand and produce more food for their people.
My question is this, does the painting at2:45more so look forward to the lebensraum rather than look back to the agrarian days?(5 votes)- Both!
Germany had endured a rapid industrialization with millions having had to leave the family farm for industrial work. Industrial labor is never dream employment, and it was easy for industrial laborers to wish that they could go back to the farm.
In the 19th century, German peasants had a safety valve that allowed German farm kids to stay on the farm -- so long as the farm was in America, Canada, Argentina, or Australia. Such was the effective Lebensraum for German peasants -- but the families emigrating to other continents would not remain Germans. By the 1930s those opportunities were gone.
As with many other fascist causes, Nazism was very much a back-to-the-farm movement. But there was no more farmland to be found in Germany. Land for Germans to live out their dreams as independent farmers would be had by stealing land from peoples in eastern Europe -- from Poles, Czechs, Ukrainians, and Russians.
Artistic themes are often ambiguous, and the idyllic scenes of rural German life recalled the past that many German workers knew in Germany and what Hitler promised them in an expanded Germany, a Germany that had no need for Poles, Czechs, Ukrainians, Russians, etc.(3 votes)
- So you are saying that Hitler was actually an Austrian?(2 votes)
- Hitler was born in Braunau am Inn which is in Austria. Later he obtain the German citizenship and he considered himself as German.
I believe that the nationality is not important. Important (for the worst reasons) are the things he did...(6 votes)
- What other kind of art does hitler mean by German art(3 votes)
- Ironically, much of the art in the "Degenerate Art" exhibition was German. The time just before the rise of Hitler had been a window onto some of the greatest achievements in artistic life in Germany. But that's not what Hitler was thinking of as "German".
By 1937. "German" had come to mean "Nazi", or at least amenable to Nazism, in Germany. The "German" art that Hitler sponsored promoted toil without thought of gain, the German people as the most attractive in the world, unity of purpose within Germany, and the glorification of martial values. It was the glorification of sentimentality, heterosexuality, and muscularity and the denial of 'dangerous' thought -- and a rejection of democracy, socialism of any kind, Jews, blacks, homosexuality, pacifism, weakness, wit, and gentleness. Such was a very narrow definition of "German".(4 votes)
- The Nazis also associated "degenerate art" with communism. Could you expand on this?(3 votes)
- Of course, 'modern' art could also serve capitalist ends. Paradoxically by the 1930s art in the Soviet Union was compelled to confirm, often with very conservative language of art, the ideals of Stalinist Communism in the dull school of Socialist Realism. Russian modernists either fled, complied, or died.
Nazi "art" is best described as Nazi realism -- "art" intended to glorify the regime, its leadership, the official ideology, and the German Volk. Today most of us see Nazi art as ludicrously vapid -- as is most Socialist realism.
One of the art schools that the Nazis most despised was Impressionism, arguably the greatest school of art since the High Renaissance. But Impressionism wasn't German.(2 votes)
- What is phrase mongering?(3 votes)
- Most likely artists discussing their new, and often shocking art. The Nazis preferred 'art' that needed no explanation except in ideology.(2 votes)
Video transcript
SPEAKER 1: We're
standing in Munich looking at the House
of Art, which was once called the House of German Art. SPEAKER 2: It was
built for Adolf Hitler, and was a place to promote
a very specific idea of German art. SPEAKER 1: This is thought
to be the very first building that Hitler had commissioned
for the Nazi state, and this was to be the
first of many buildings they were to be constructed
around the nation that were the embodiment of
National Socialist ideology. SPEAKER 2: As we look
at this building, it's hard not to notice
that the Nazis were drawing on the classical tradition
of ancient Greek and Roman architecture. SPEAKER 1: Yes. But by way of 19th century
classical revival traditions, especially in Germany, we might
think of the work of Schinkel, up in Prussia, in
Berlin, especially, and we might think of the work
of Klenze, here in Munich. These were artists that
took the ancient tradition and appropriated
them for their age. This building is a
little bit different. It is even more spare. It is even more stripped down. But we can see this long door
colonnade on either side, giving a sense of
order and power. SPEAKER 2: And I think
timelessness is another words that we should use
about this architecture. There was an aspiration
toward the eternal, or timelessness-- that ancient
Greek architecture stood for those very values that
the Nazis wanted to embody, as opposed to what
they considered degenerate art, or sickly,
unhealthy art, that was actually exhibited
just a few blocks away. SPEAKER 1: There were two
major exhibitions of art that were opened in
1937 that were meant to be seen in opposition
to each other, and they were only about a block
and a half from each other. The Great Exhibition
of German Art opened here, at the
House of German Art. But then in a temporary
exhibition space was the first iteration of the
Entartete Kunft Exhibition, the Degenerate Art Exhibition. SPEAKER 2: We use that
word "degenerate," and what it really meant for
the Nazis was an art that was sickly and unhealthy--
the art that today we hold as most dear. If you go to modern art museums,
you'll be looking at the art the Nazis considered
"degenerate"-- artist like Schmidt
Rottluff or Paul Klee or Max Ernst, Kirchner. All of the great
early modernists. And those artists were drawing
on so-called primitive art. They deformed the human body. They used extreme colors. They distorted space. These were all things
that Hitler rejected. He was looking for
an art that was ideal and beautiful
and perfect, and that represented a kind
of timelessness. SPEAKER 1: So this
architecture and the art that it was meant to
house were tied up in National Socialist ideology. Germany had gone through a
very rapid industrialization. And the National
Socialists, the Nazis, looked back to a kind of
invented agrarian past that they romanticized. And so the
contemporary ills that came with industrialization,
that came with urbanization, were vilified. And art that was representative
of those changes, a kind of international
character, a kind of risk taking-- all of the aspects that
we associate with modern art-- is something that was vilified. And this building was
built specifically as a kind of antidote. SPEAKER 2: And you could
say that another aspect of modern art is that
it's constantly changing. There's Cubism and
Futurism and Dadaism and all of these
movements, always trying to stay
contemporary as opposed to what Hitler was wanting
for the Third Reich, which was timeless. SPEAKER 1: In fact, Hitler
spoke to this directly. SPEAKER 2: In the speech that
Hitler gave on the opening of the first
exhibition, he said, "Until the moment when
national socialism took power, there existed in Germany a
so-called 'modern art.' That is, to be sure, almost
every year, another one. National Socialist
Germany, however, wants, again, a German art." So when Hitler says, "a
German art," make no mistake. What he means by that is
eradicating another kind of art and denying those
artists the ability to make art,
sending some of them off to concentration camps. The artist whose work appears
on the cover the Entartete Kunst exhibition was sent to
a concentration camp and murdered. This was serious,
frightening propaganda. SPEAKER 1: So the kind of art
that was being exhibited here was really an art of
exclusion, and it was really a kind of propaganda. And it reminds us of just how
powerful the visual arts can be as a tool of the state. And the person who
embodies this most is a man named Adolf
Ziegler, who was a painter, and the man responsible
for putting together the first exhibition
of great German art here in the House of German
Art, and also organizing the Entartete Kunst exhibition. And Ziegler was a
favorite of Adolf Hitler. In fact, his painting,
The Four Elements, was hung in the
Reich's chancellery, in Hitler's own
office in Berlin. Characteristic of Ziegler's
work and characteristic of much of the painting
and sculpture that was exhibited in this first
exhibition in the House of German Art is a
classicism-- we see an emphasis on eternal properties,
like the four elements, like the four seasons. And we see an emphasis
on a particularity and a kind of
hyper-clarity that we might associate with 15th
century northern art. SPEAKER 2: And the art that was
exhibited in the degenerate art exhibition was hung
with art by people who were mentally and
physically handicapped. So that was art that
was associated with all that the Nazis were
eradicating-- literally murdering. SPEAKER 1: And it
was wildly popular. Estimates put the attendance to
the Entartete Kunst exhibition between two and
three million people. And you know what? Even now, in the beginning
of the 21st century, there is still real
controversy about modernism. People still get upset. And I think it's
important to understand our uncomfortableness,
but also the kind of historical dimensions
by which intolerance of art can become dangerous. SPEAKER 2: Very dangerous. Maybe this is a good time
to read a little bit more from Hitler's speech
at the inauguration of that first exhibition. "Art can, in no
way, be a fashion. As little as the character
in the blood of our people will change, so
much will art have to lose its moral character and
replace it with worthy images, expressing the life
course of our people. Cubism, Dadaism,
Futurism, Impressionism have nothing to do
with our German people. I will therefore confess
now, in this very hour, that I have come to the
final, inalterable decision, to clean house--
just as I have done in the domain of
political confusion-- and, from now on,
rid the German art life of it's phase-mongering." Those are chilling words. SPEAKER 1: And,
of course, Hitler did with people what he
also did with the art. SPEAKER 2: It's
interesting to note that the motto of the Austrian
avant-garde-- and Hitler was, after all, Austrian. SPEAKER 1: And he was
a would-be artist. SPEAKER 2: The motto was, "to
each age its art, and to art it's freedom"-- the very
opposite of the ideals that Hitler was
trying to promote.