Aaron Post 4

I think that the reason Authoritarian thinkers or leaders are afraid of art and its affects is because art inspires emotion. When people act on their emotions they will do things they wouldn’t do normally and are thus harder for leaders of Authoritarian regimes to control. This is why it makes sense that Plato would want to get rid of all the poets and artists from his ideal Republic. Plato believed that Reason was the only way to the Truth and that emotions were futile and got in the way. If an artist puts out an image that portrays a stance against the government he would be able to inspire people in a way that only an artist can. There is just something inexplicable about the way the arts can move and inspire us. In the “Beauty without Sensuality” reading it explains that at the time of the Exhibit of Degenerate Art “unbridled passions” were seen as the enemy of respectability (p.25). Authoritarian leaders often tried to reach their people by appealing to their emotions (Triumph of the Will is a perfect example), so they understood the power emotions have and were afraid artists could use their work to provoke dissent from the Authoritarian regime. Authoritarianism is all about the complete control of the subject including all thoughts and emotions, and the strict regulation of art is one of the best ways to control emotion and to get inside the head of the people you are trying to essentially brainwash to follow you.

As a way to monitor all images that reached the public, Hitler came up with the concept of degeneracy. On p.26 of the Mosse article degeneracy is defined as any departure from the norm because of a behavioral excess. This was often associated with an illness or sexual deviance. Of course this “norm” was defined and closely monitored by Hitler. Through things such as the Exhibit of Degenerate Art, Hitler gave the illusion of leaving the definition of the norm up to the German people, when really they were being force-fed Hitler’s ideas.

One of the artists that was featured in the exhibit of Degenerate Art created by Hitler and the Third Reich was Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. Some of Kirchner’s paintings are landscapes with distorted views of buildings and nature. Often the buildings would be pink and purple and the sky green or other mix of "abnormal" colors. An example of this is the work entitled “View of Dresden: Schlossplatz”. It is important to note this kind of distortion of reality of a landscape, but what Hitler was really concerned with was depictions of the human body. Hitler had built his entire state on the idea of the “German body” being superior to that of all other races and he did not want this challenged by degenerate, or distorted and sickly, representations of the body. The images I found most interesting with respect to the human body were sketch-like images of people in various positions. One example of this is the piece entitled “Two Figures”. The bodies are distorted sketches of what a human actually looks like and the background is basically random scribbles. It is certainly not trying to depict the ideal “German body”. Instead it reminds me of Plato’s idea of the world of forms and the world of shadows. This drawing seems to be depicting a shadow or reflection of the ideal body, this is like the one we would see in the world of shadows in which we live. In this respect Plato might say that the “degenerate” sketch of the body is actually closer to the reality we see in our world (the world of shadows) and that Hitler was trying to force the idea of the “ideal body” on those people who have not been enlightened and have not realized the world of forms (those who are still chained up in the cave).

In a way the expressionist artists were actually thinking on a higher level that Hitler couldn’t understand and was therefore afraid of. The Expressionist painters realized that humans are depraved beings that have all sorts of problems and issues inside their confused minds. They then took these inward feelings and displayed them outwardly through their depictions of the human body in art. Hitler couldn’t make this connection and was only concerned with the literal, physical interpretation and therefore missed the point of the art and saw it as sickly or childish.

As far as the idea of “beauty without sensuality”, I do not think the distortion of the human body or nudity necessarily implies sensuality. Hitler was trying to idealize the body and hold it up on a pedestal to be admired but not lusted after. While looking through Kirchner’s works I found plenty of nude depictions of the human body, but did not find anything overtly sexual. While some of the Expressionist artists were creating overtly sexual works of art, I think most of the problem came from this unnecessary paranoia Hitler had towards the whole Expressionist movement and his built up anger because of his own inability to become an artist.

The image below is commenting on the way we stereotype certain races as terrorists. The skull towards the top of the picture is definitely a distortion of the human head. Hitler would classify this piece of art as degenerate because physically it is not an accurate depiction of reality. The message behind the image is what Hitler would fail to acknowledge. The ambiguous but evil face in the bottom right corner shows us that terrorism should be associated with evil, not with a certain race or nationality. In that way this art is not degenerate at all and is actually very good art with an important message. Art should not just be taken for face value. You have to go beyond the physical and consider the emotions and undertones of the work of art. Art is made to depict reality, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the physical reality we see each day.