Reply
Wed 25 Feb, 2004 09:11 am
I know in the 30s many works by German Expressionists and other artists were labeled 'degenerate art' and taken out of German museums by the Nazis.
My question is, what happened to these peices? It seems like a lot of these artists' work still exists so Im guessing they werent distroyed. Were some destroyed though, or were they just packed away?
They probably went a lot of places. It would be easier to track certain pieces, because some probably went to private quarters, to mexico, to America, were destroyed... I know the Nazi's stole a lot of art and had to give some of it back later...
The art work Im thinking of is mainly by German artists. A lot of artwork by German Expressionists like Emile Nolde, Paula Modersohn-Becker etc. had their work removed because they showed the lower classes of the German people, the types of people the Nazis wanted to rid Germany of (to put it nicely) so their work was considered degenerate. Nolde, I beleive, was even ordered to never paint again.
I would have assumed their works would have been destroyed but you can view work by these artists today. I wonder if the artists or sympathizers of the artists were allowed to take them or buy them in order to keep them intact?
All this started with an exhibition in 1937, called "Entartete Kunst".
Artistic movements condemned as degenerate during the Nazi rule of Germany: Dadaism, Cubism, Expressionism, Fauvism, Impressionism, New Objectivity, Surrealism.
From the 'Britannica:
Quote:Degenarete Art: German "Entartete Kunst", propagandistically designed Nazi exhibition of modern art held in Munich in 1937 and advertised as "culture documents of the decadent work of Bolsheviks and Jews." The works on exhibit included only a small segment ofthe almost 20,000 works of modern art confiscated from German museums on the orders of Joseph Goebbels, the minister of propaganda.
So-called degenerate works by Pablo Picasso, Wassily Kandinsky, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Emile Nolde, and other majorartists of the 20th century were juxtaposed with paintings by psychotic patients and were subjected to vicious ridicule by the press and the German people. This exhibit was designed tocontrast with a simultaneous exhibition of art approved by the leading Nazis, made up of works executed in an academic style and dealing with typical Nazi themes of heroism and duty.
You may find some answers here at this website (in English), which has many good links:
Degenerate Art
Some links here as well (the website is in English)
Entartete Kunst
truth
Yes, Walter, further evidence of the degenerate nature of Nazi ideology. The irony of this is that Germany has shown us how, as Goethe put it, one can "sound the hights and depths that man can know." The depths was the Nazi episode, but the hight is seen in Wittgenstein and Einstein (Jews), the expressionists, and the unsurpassable achievements of Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schuman, Schubert, Mendelssohn--even Wagner (the anti-Jew).
Stumble It!
Tweet This
Bookmark on Delicious
Share on Facebook
Share on MySpace