The Fascist View of Art

1
The Fascist View of Art

• Volkische Kunst vs. Entartete Kunst

2
Fasces

• A bundle of rods (often accompanied by an axe,
  which symbolized power over life-and-death)
  carried by  Roman officials as a symbol of
  authority.
• http//home.uchicago.edu/janie/fasces.htm

3
Fasces in the Lincoln Memorial

• he Lincoln Memorial (1922) uses the image of
  fasces are sculpted in the front of his seat,
  beneath his hands.

4
The Nazis Entartete Kunst Exhibit

• Entarte Kunst means degenerate art.
• Art work that adopted from primitive forms, or in
  otherways could cause a degeneration in the
  (so-called) Aryan spirit.
• This is contrasted with the Nazis preferred
  Volkische art (populist, or of the people).
• Ironically, the show was exceptionally popular,
  with 3 million people viewing it.

5
The Entartete Kunst Exhibit

• In 1941, the exhibit appeared in 13 cities in
  Germany and Austria.

6
Image from the Entartete Kunst Exhibit

• The exhibit purposefully used poor lighting.
• On the walls were slogans such as
• Nature as seen by sick minds.
• Incompetents and charlatans.

7
Joseph Goebbels visits the exhibit

• Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi Propaganda Minister and
  an art lover, visited the show.

8
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, The Artillerymen (1915)

• The work of Kirchner, a German Expressionist, was
  included in the exhibit as an example of the type
  of art the Nazis considered degenerate.

9
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Bathers at Moritzburg
(1909 1926)

• Ironically, Kirchners Bathers was initially
  approved of by Joseph Goebbels because of its
  anti-modernist aesthetic.
• However it fails to promote Aryan beauty.

10
Max Beckmann, Brother and Sister (1933)

• Beckmann, another German Expressionist, also was
  presented in the exhibit.

11
Wasily Kandinsky, Composition IV (1911)

• Another degenerate style was abstract art.
• Kandinsky, who taught at the Bauhaus from 19922
  1933 (when the Nazis closed it) created a series
  of Compositions prior to WWI.
• The first 3 Compositions were confiscated and
  displayed in the exhibit. They were later
  destroyed along with many other works from the
  exhibition.

12
Entartete Musik

• The Nazis were also concerned about degenerate
  music.
• Notice the stereotyping of the black jazz
  musician, including the Jewish Star of David on
  his lapel..

13
Nazi Art Albert Janisch, Water Sport (1936)

• This is a classic example of good Nazi art.
• The composition is classically structured, the
  figures are strong and masculine, and a heroic
  golden light shines from the rowers.
• Note that 1936 was the year the Olympics were
  held in Berlin, and Janisch seems to represent
  that event, in which the Nazis hoped to prove
  their racial superiority.

14
Nazi Art Adolph Wissel, Farm Family from
Kahlenberg (1939)

• Wissel portrays another favored theme of Nazi
  painting, the good German farm family.
• Families were vital to producing more soldiers
  and workers for the Reich, and farms had the
  honored and critical role of feeding the
  nations warriors.
• The painting also reflects the Nazis
  mythicization of rural, primitive (non-modern)
  life. The re-generation takes them back to a
  more idyllic, pastoral, time.

15
Nazi Art Julius Paul Junghanns, Plowing

• Junghanns also presents the classic Nazi vision
  of a re-generation as a return to the soil.
• The romantic (anti-modernist, anti-rational,
  anti-intellectual) vision of the Nazis is
  displayed in the old-fashioned method of plowing
  the earth. (Unlike Soviet paintings, which
  frequently feature tractors, to emphasize the
  Communists industrial advances over the Czars).
• Oddly, the Nazis were in fact committed to
  maximized efficiency through machine labor.
  Their public image and private reality were very
  different.

16
Nazi Art Ernst Liebermann, By the Water

• The Nazis had a very sexualized political
  ideology, which fused with their vision of
  superior Aryan beauty.
• Images which emphasized the beauty of German
  women (and German men, such as Water Sport),
  especially when done in a classical style, are
  emblematic of Nazi art.

17
Nazi Art Karl Albiker, Relay Runners

• The Nazis also prized sculpture.
• Typically, Nazi sculpture mimics classical
  styles, and treats its subjects as heroic figures
  (as befits a master race).
• Relay Runners is one of the many poorly executed
  pieces created quickly to fill the empty
  exhibition space left by the confiscation and
  destruction of degenerate works.

18
Nazi Art Arno Breker

• Brekers sculptural works were of higher quality,
  and so, in a disquieting way, successfully
  reinforce the Nazi image of German superiority.
• (click for two more Breker works)

The Warrior Departs
Preparedness
The Guard
19
Artists Reaction to Fascism

• This photomontage by John Heartfield mocks Herman
  Görings comment on food shortages,
• Iron has always made a country strong, butter
  and lard only make people fat.

20
Artists Reaction to Fascism

• Max Beckmanns Birds Hell distorts the fascist
  image of noble mothers into a bizarre 4-breasted
  beast with green hair giving the Nazi salute.
• The birds represent the pompously uniformed Nazi
  commanders, the eagle is the Prussian eagle
  adopted by the Nazis, and in the foreground one
  of their victims is gruesomely tortured.

21
The End