Degenerate art

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Degenerate Art Exhibition
.

Degenerate art (

Communist
in nature. Those identified as degenerate artists were subjected to sanctions that included being dismissed from teaching positions, being forbidden to exhibit or to sell their art, and in some cases being forbidden to produce art.

Degenerate Art also was the title of a

modernist artworks that the Nazis had taken from museums, that were poorly hung alongside graffiti and text labels mocking the art and the artists.[1] Designed to inflame public opinion against modernism, the exhibition subsequently traveled to several other cities in Germany and Austria
.

While modern styles of art were prohibited, the Nazis promoted paintings and sculptures that were traditional in manner and that exalted the "

blood and soil" values of racial purity, militarism, and obedience. Similar restrictions were placed upon music, which was expected to be tonal and free of any jazz influences; disapproved music was termed degenerate music. Films and plays were also censored.[2]

Theories of degeneracy

Das Magdeburger Ehrenmal (the Magdeburg cenotaph), by Ernst Barlach was declared to be degenerate art due to the "deformity" and emaciation of the figures—corresponding to Nordau's theorized connection between "mental and physical degeneration".

The term Entartung (or

Zionist movement (Lombroso was also Jewish), his theory of artistic degeneracy would be seized upon by German Nazis during the Weimar Republic as a rallying point for their antisemitic and racist demand for Aryan
purity in art.

Belief in a Germanic spirit—defined as mystical, rural, moral, bearing ancient wisdom, and noble in the face of a tragic destiny—existed long before the rise of the Nazis; the composer

classical beauty, while racially mixed modern artists produced disordered artworks and monstrous depictions of the human form. By reproducing examples of modern art next to photographs of people with deformities and diseases, he graphically reinforced the idea of modernism as a sickness.[7] Alfred Rosenberg developed this theory in Der Mythos des 20. Jahrhunderts (Myth of the Twentieth Century), published in 1933, which became a best-seller in Germany and made Rosenberg the Party's leading ideological spokesman.[8]

Weimar reactionism

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
See also: Secession (art), Decadent movement, and Jugendstil

The early 20th century was a period of wrenching changes in the arts. The development of

Nosferatu
(1922) brought Expressionism to cinema.

In the visual arts, such innovations as

the older way of things.[10]

Wilhelm II, who took an active interest in regulating art in Germany, criticized Impressionism as "gutter painting" (Gossenmalerei)[11] and forbade Käthe Kollwitz from being awarded a medal for her print series A Weavers' Revolt when it was displayed in the Berlin Grand Exhibition of the Arts in 1898.[12] In 1913, the Prussian house of representatives passed a resolution "against degeneracy in art".[11]

The Nazis viewed the culture of the

First World War, then a familiar sight on Berlin's streets, rendered in caricatured style. (In 1937, it would be displayed in the Degenerate Art exhibition next to a label accusing Dix—himself a volunteer in World War I[14]—of "an insult to the German heroes of the Great War".[15]
)

Art historian Henry Grosshans says that Hitler "saw Greek and Roman art as uncontaminated by Jewish influences. Modern art was [seen as] an act of aesthetic violence by the Jews against the German spirit. Such was true to Hitler even though only Liebermann, Meidner, Freundlich, and Marc Chagall, among those who made significant contributions to the German modernist movement, were Jewish. But Hitler ... took upon himself the responsibility of deciding who, in matters of culture, thought and acted like a Jew."[16] The supposedly "Jewish" nature of all art that was indecipherable, distorted, or that represented "depraved" subject matter was explained through the concept of degeneracy, which held that distorted and corrupted art was a symptom of an inferior race. By propagating the theory of degeneracy, the Nazis combined their antisemitism with their drive to control the culture, thus consolidating public support for both campaigns.[17]

Nazi purge

Once in control of the government, the Nazis moved to suppress modern art styles and to promote art with national and racial themes.[18] Various Weimar-era art personalities, including Renner, Huelsenbeck, and the Bauhaus designers, were marginalized.

In 1930 Wilhelm Frick, a Nazi, became Minister for Culture and Education in the state of Thuringia.[19] By his order, 70 mostly Expressionist paintings were removed from the permanent exhibition of the Weimar Schlossmuseum in 1930, and the director of the König Albert Museum in Zwickau, Hildebrand Gurlitt, was dismissed for displaying modern art.[11]

Albert Gleizes, 1912, Landschaft bei Paris, Paysage près de Paris, Paysage de Courbevoie, missing from Hannover since 1937[20][21]
Reichskulturkammer (Reich Culture Chamber) was established, with Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's Reichsminister für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda (Reich Minister for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda) in charge. Sub-chambers within the Culture Chamber, representing the individual arts (music, film, literature, architecture, and the visual arts) were created; these were membership groups consisting of "racially pure" artists supportive of the Party, or willing to be compliant. Goebbels made it clear: "In future only those who are members of a chamber are allowed to be productive in our cultural life. Membership is open only to those who fulfill the entrance condition. In this way all unwanted and damaging elements have been excluded."[25] By 1935 the Reich Culture Chamber had 100,000 members.[25]

As dictator, Hitler gave his personal taste in art the force of law to a degree never before seen. Only in

Socialist Realism was the mandatory style, had a modern state shown such concern with regulation of the arts.[26] In the case of Germany, the model was to be classical Greek and Roman art, regarded by Hitler as an art whose exterior form embodied an inner racial ideal.[27]

Nonetheless, during 1933–1934 there was some confusion within the Party on the question of

Expressionism. Goebbels and some others believed that the forceful works of such artists as Emil Nolde, Ernst Barlach and Erich Heckel exemplified the Nordic spirit; as Goebbels explained, "We National Socialists are not unmodern; we are the carrier of a new modernity, not only in politics and in social matters, but also in art and intellectual matters."[28] However, a faction led by Alfred Rosenberg despised the Expressionists, and the result was a bitter ideological dispute, which was settled only in September 1934, when Hitler declared that there would be no place for modernist experimentation in the Reich.[29] This edict left many artists initially uncertain as to their status. The work of the Expressionist painter Emil Nolde, a committed member of the Nazi party, continued to be debated even after he was ordered to cease artistic activity in 1936.[30] For many modernist artists, such as Max Beckmann, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, and Oskar Schlemmer, it was not until June 1937 that they surrendered any hope that their work would be tolerated by the authorities.[31]

Although books by

atonal music was banned, the prohibition of jazz was less strictly enforced. Benny Goodman and Django Reinhardt were popular, and leading British and American jazz bands continued to perform in major cities until the war; thereafter, dance bands officially played "swing" rather than the banned jazz.[34]

Entartete Kunst exhibit

Main article:
Degenerate Art Exhibition
Entartete Kunst poster, Berlin, 1938
Letter to Emil Nolde in 1941 from Adolf Ziegler, who declares that Nolde's art is degenerate art, and forbids him to paint.

By 1937, the concept of degeneracy was firmly entrenched in Nazi policy. On 30 June of that year Goebbels put Adolf Ziegler, the head of Reichskammer der Bildenden Künste (Reich Chamber of Visual Art), in charge of a six-man commission authorized to confiscate from museums and art collections throughout the Reich, any remaining art deemed modern, degenerate, or subversive. These works were then to be presented to the public in an exhibit intended to incite further revulsion against the "perverse Jewish spirit" penetrating German culture.[35][36]

Over 5000 works were seized, including 1052 by Nolde, 759 by Heckel, 639 by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and 508 by Max Beckmann, as well as smaller numbers of works by such artists as Alexander Archipenko, Marc Chagall, James Ensor, Albert Gleizes, Henri Matisse, Jean Metzinger, Pablo Picasso, and Vincent van Gogh.[37] The Entartete Kunst exhibit, featuring over 650 paintings, sculptures, prints, and books from the collections of 32 German museums, premiered in Munich on 19 July 1937, and remained on view until 30 November, before traveling to 11 other cities in Germany and Austria.

The exhibit was held on the second floor of a building formerly occupied by the Institute of Archaeology. Viewers had to reach the exhibit by means of a narrow staircase. The first sculpture was an oversized, theatrical portrait of Jesus, which purposely intimidated viewers as they literally bumped into it in order to enter. The rooms were made of temporary partitions and deliberately chaotic and overfilled. Pictures were crowded together, sometimes unframed, usually hung by cord.

The first three rooms were grouped thematically. The first room contained works considered demeaning of religion; the second featured works by Jewish artists in particular; the third contained works deemed insulting to the women, soldiers and farmers of Germany. The rest of the exhibit had no particular theme.

There were slogans painted on the walls. For example:

  • Insolent mockery of the Divine under Centrist rule
  • Revelation of the Jewish racial soul
  • An insult to German womanhood
  • The ideal—cretin and whore
  • Deliberate sabotage of national defense
  • German farmers—a Yiddish view
  • The Jewish longing for the wilderness reveals itself—in Germany the Negro becomes the racial ideal of a degenerate art
  • Madness becomes method
  • Nature as seen by sick minds
  • Even museum bigwigs called this the "art of the German people"[38]

Speeches of Nazi party leaders contrasted with artist

German marks,[39] the prices of the paintings were of course greatly exaggerated. The exhibit was designed to promote the idea that modernism was a conspiracy by people who hated German decency, frequently identified as Jewish-Bolshevist, although only 6 of the 112 artists included in the exhibition were in fact Jewish.[40]

The exhibition program contained photographs of modern artworks accompanied by defamatory text.[41] The cover featured the exhibition title—with the word "Kunst", meaning art, in scare quotes—superimposed on an image of Otto Freundlich's sculpture Der Neue Mensch.

A few weeks after the opening of the exhibition, Goebbels ordered a second and more thorough scouring of German art collections; inventory lists indicate that the artworks seized in this second round, combined with those gathered prior to the exhibition, amounted to 16,558 works.[42][43]

Coinciding with the Entartete Kunst exhibition, the Große Deutsche Kunstausstellung (Great German art exhibition) made its premiere amid much pageantry. This exhibition, held at the palatial Haus der deutschen Kunst (House of German Art), displayed the work of officially approved artists such as Arno Breker and Adolf Wissel. At the end of four months Entartete Kunst had attracted over two million visitors, nearly three and a half times the number that visited the nearby Große Deutsche Kunstausstellung.[44]

Fate of the artists and their work

Self-portrait by Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler, who was murdered at Sonnenstein Euthanasia Centre in 1940

Avant-garde German artists were branded both enemies of the state and a threat to German culture. Many went into exile. Max Beckmann fled to Amsterdam on the opening day of the Entartete Kunst exhibit.[45] Max Ernst emigrated to America with the assistance of Peggy Guggenheim. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner committed suicide in Switzerland in 1938. Paul Klee spent his years in exile in Switzerland, yet was unable to obtain Swiss citizenship because of his status as a degenerate artist. A leading German dealer, Alfred Flechtheim, died penniless in exile in London in 1937.

Other artists remained in internal exile.

Action T4 (see, for example, Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler
).

After the exhibit, only the most valuable paintings were sorted out to be included in the auction held by Galerie Theodor Fischer (auctioneer) in Luzern, Switzerland, on 30 June 1939 at the Grand Hotel National. The sale consisted of artworks seized from German public museums; some pieces from the sale were acquired by museums, others by private collectors such as Maurice Wertheim who acquired the 1888 self-portrait by Vincent van Gogh that was seized from the Neue Staatsgalerie in Munich belonging to today's Bavarian State Painting Collections.[2] Nazi officials took many for their private use: for example, Hermann Göring took 14 valuable pieces, including a Van Gogh and a Cézanne. In March 1939, the Berlin Fire Brigade burned about 4000 paintings, drawings and prints that had apparently little value on the international market. This was an act of unprecedented vandalism, although the Nazis were well used to book burnings on a large scale.[49][50]

A large amount of "degenerate art" by

Nazis considered indeed that they should not be concerned by Frenchmen's mental health.[52] As a consequence, many works made by these artists were sold at the main French auction house during the occupation.[53]

The couple Sophie and Emanuel Fohn, who exchanged the works for harmless works of art from their own possession and kept them in safe custody throughout the National Socialist era, saved about 250 works by ostracized artists. The collection survived in South Tyrol from 1943 and was handed over to the Bavarian State Painting Collections in 1964.[54]

After the collapse of Nazi Germany and the invasion of Berlin by the Red Army, some artwork from the exhibit was found buried underground. It is unclear how many of these then reappeared in the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, where they still remain.

In 2010, as work began to extend an

cubist-style statue of a female dancer by the artist Marg Moll, and are on display at the Neues Museum.[55][56][57]

Artists in the 1937 Munich show

Artistic movements condemned as degenerate

Listing

The

Reichsministerium für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda (Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda) compiled a 479-page, two-volume typewritten listing of the works confiscated as "degenerate" from Germany's public institutions in 1937–38. In 1996 the Victoria and Albert Museum in London acquired the only known surviving copy of the complete listing. The document was donated to the V&A's National Art Library by Elfriede Fischer, the widow of the art dealer Heinrich Robert ("Harry") Fischer. Copies were made available to other libraries and research organisations at the time, and much of the information was subsequently incorporated into a database maintained by the Freie Universität Berlin.[58][59]

A digital reproduction of the entire inventory was published on the Victoria and Albert Museum's website in January 2014. The V&A's publication consists of two

IIIF page-turning software and incorporates an interactive index arranged by city and museum. The earlier PDF edition remains available too.[61]

The V&A's copy of the full inventory is thought to have been compiled in 1941 or 1942, after the sales and disposals were completed.

Degenerate Art Exhibition) or Der ewige Jude (see The Eternal Jew (art exhibition)).[64]

The main dealers mentioned are Bernhard A. Böhmer (or Boehmer),

Karl Buchholz, Hildebrand Gurlitt, and Ferdinand Möller. The manuscript also contains entries for many artworks acquired by the artist Emanuel Fohn, in exchange for other works.[65]

21st-century reactions

Neil Levi, writing in The Chronicle of Higher Education, suggested that the branding of art as "degenerate" was only partly an aesthetic aim of the Nazis. Another was the confiscation of valuable artwork, a deliberate means to enrich the regime.[66]

In popular culture

A Picasso, a play by Jeffrey Hatcher based loosely on actual events, is set in Paris 1941 and sees Picasso being asked to authenticate three works for inclusion in an upcoming exhibition of degenerate art.[67][68]

In the 1964 film The Train, a German Army colonel attempts to steal hundreds of "degenerate" paintings from Paris before it is liberated during World War II.[69]

See also

References

Notes

  1. ^ "Degenerate Art". fcit.usf.edu. Retrieved 13 June 2023.
  2. ^ a b "The Collection | Entartete Kunst". MoMA. Retrieved 12 August 2010.
  3. ^ Barron 1991, p. 26.
  4. ^ Adam 1992, pp. 23–24.
  5. OCLC 253374235
    .
  6. ^ Adam 1992, pp. 29–32.
  7. ^ Grosshans 1983, p. 9. Grosshans calls Schultze-Naumburg "[u]ndoubtedly the most important" of the era's German critics of modernism.
  8. ^ Adam 1992, p. 33.
  9. ^ Adam 1992, p. 29.
  10. ISBN 0-8109-3401-9
    . p. 615.
  11. ^ a b c Kühnel, Anita (2003). "Entartete Kunst". Grove Art Online.
  12. ISBN 9780230248700
    .
  13. ^ Adam 1992, p. 110.
  14. ISBN 3-8228-2126-8
    .
  15. ^ Barron 1991, p. 54.
  16. ^ Grosshans 1983, p. 86.
  17. ^ Barron 1991, p. 83.
  18. ISBN 978-0-8047-4327-3
    .
  19. OCLC 22438356.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link
    ), p. 54
  20. ^ "Entartete Kunst (Degenerate Art), complete inventory of over 16,000 artworks confiscated by the Nazi regime from public institutions in Germany, 1937–1938, Reichsministerium für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda. Victoria and Albert Museum, Albert Gleizes, Landschaft bei Paris, n. 7030, Volume 2, p. 57 (includes the Entartete Kunst inventory)". Vam.ac.uk. 30 June 1939. Retrieved 14 August 2014.
  21. ^ Albert Gleizes, Paysage près de Paris (Paysage de Courbevoie, Landschaft bei Paris), oil on canvas, 72.8 × 87.1 cm. Lost Art Internet Database, Stiftung Deutsches Zentrum Kulturgutverluste.
  22. ^ "Jean Metzinger, Im Boot (En Canot), Degenerate Art Database (Beschlagnahme Inventar, Entartete Kunst)" [Jean Metzinger, Im Boot (In Canoe), Degenerate Art Database (confiscation inventory, degenerate art)]. Emuseum.campus.fu-berlin.de. Retrieved 9 November 2013.
  23. ^ "Degenerate Art Database (Beschlagnahme Inventar, Entartete Kunst)" [Degenerate Art Database (confiscation inventory, degenerate art)]. Emuseum.campus.fu-berlin.de. Retrieved 9 November 2013.
  24. ^ Adam 1992, p. 52.
  25. ^ a b Adam 1992, p. 53.
  26. ^ Barron 1991, p. 10.
  27. ^ Grosshans 1983, p. 87.
  28. ^ Adam 1992, p. 56.
  29. ^ Grosshans 1983, pp. 73–74.
  30. ISBN 0198159226
    .
  31. ^ Kimmelman, Michael (19 June 2014). "The Art Hitler Hated". The New York Review of Books 61 (11): 25–26.
  32. ^ Laqueur 1996, p. 74.
  33. ^ Laqueur 1996, p. 73.
  34. ^ Laqueur 1996, pp. 73–75.
  35. ^ Adam 1992, p. 123, quoting Goebbels, 26 November 1937, in Von der Grossmacht zur Weltmacht.
  36. ^ "We're asking about profit, morality, money and rescue". 9 December 2022.
  37. ^ Adam 1992, pp. 121–122.
  38. ^ Barron 1991, p. 46.
  39. ^ Evans 2004, p. 106.
  40. ^ Barron 1991, p. 9.
  41. ISBN 0810936534
    .
  42. ^ Barron 1991, pp. 47–48.
  43. ^ "Entartete Kunst (Degenerate Art), complete inventory of artworks confiscated by the Nazi regime from public institutions in Germany, 1937–1938, Reichsministerium für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda. Victoria and Albert Museum". Vam.ac.uk. 30 June 1939. Retrieved 14 August 2014.
  44. ^ Adam 1992, pp. 124–125.
  45. ^ Schulz-Hoffmann and Weiss 1984, p. 461.
  46. ^ Karcher 1988, p. 206.
  47. ^ Bradley 1986, p. 115.
  48. ^ Petropoulos 2000, p. 217.
  49. ^ Grosshans 1983, p. 113.
  50. ^ "Entartete Kunst". Olinda.com. 19 July 1937. Retrieved 12 August 2010.
  51. ^ Hellman, Mallory, Let's Go Paris, p. 84.
  52. ISBN 2020121255
    .
  53. ^ Oosterlinck, Kim (2009). "The Price of Degenerate Art", Working Papers CEB 09-031.RS, ULB – Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
  54. ^ Kraus & Obermair 2019, pp. 40–1.
  55. ^ Hickley, Catherine (27 September 1946). "'Degenerate' Art Unearthed From Berlin Bomb Rubble". Bloomberg. Retrieved 10 November 2010.
  56. ^ Black, Rosemary (9 November 2010). "Rescued pre-WWII 'degenerate art' on display in the Neues Museum in Berlin". New York Daily News. Retrieved 10 November 2010.
  57. ^ Charles Hawley (8 November 2010). "Nazi Degenerate Art Rediscovered in Berlin". Der Spiegel.
  58. ^ "V&A Entartete Kunst webpage". Vam.ac.uk. 30 June 1939. Retrieved 14 August 2014.
  59. ^ "Freie Universität Berlin Database "Entartete Kunst"". Geschkult.fu-berlin.de. 28 August 2013. Retrieved 14 August 2014.
  60. ^ Entartete Kunst, Victoria and Albert Museum. 2014.
  61. ^ Explore 'Entartete Kunst': The Nazis' inventory of 'degenerate art', Victoria and Albert Museum. 2019.
  62. ^ Victoria and Albert Museum 2014. Introduction by Douglas Dodds & Heike Zech, p. i.
  63. ^ a b Victoria and Albert Museum 2014. Introduction by Douglas Dodds & Heike Zech, p. ii.
  64. ^ Victoria and Albert Museum 2014, vol. 1, p. 7.
  65. ^ Victoria and Albert Museum 2014, vol. 1 and 2.
  66. ^ Levi, Neil (12 November 2013). "The Uses of Nazi 'Degenerate Art'". The Chronicle of Higher Education. Archived from the original on 13 November 2013. Retrieved 16 July 2023.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  67. ^ Isherwood, C. (20 April 2005). "Portrait of the Artist as a Master of the One-Liner". The New York Times. Retrieved 22 June 2013.
  68. ^ Blake, J. (3 October 2012). "Ve haff vays of being unintentionally funny". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 22 June 2013.
  69. ^ "Train, The (1965) – (Movie Clip) Degenerate Art". Archived from the original on 15 February 2015. Retrieved 15 February 2015.

Bibliography

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Entartete Kunst.
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