Ashley Cannaday
1) Authoritarian regimes try to control every aspect of their citizens’ lives, so that the government has all of the power. These rulers are threatened by art because all art has an underlying message that it is trying to convey to the viewer. As Hitler stated in his speech inaugurating the Great Exhibition of German Art, “The artist does not create for the artist, but… creates for the people.” This message can be very powerful and persuasive. Plato very much believed that art had the power to both destroy the state and promote the state (Republic Book X), and most authoritative thinkers would agree. Different forms of art present the viewer with different points of view, and different opinions. This is the last thing that leaders like Hitler want. Authoritarian regimes don’t want artists to fill the heads of the people with ideas that go against the regime, and possibly lead to rebellion.
2) The artistic movement I chose to explore was Expressionism, which spread across
The Kiss by Gustav Klimt (Left) Mada Primavesi by Gustav Klimt (Right)
The Beethoven Frieze by Klimt
Mosse describes degeneracy as “the condition of those who had departed from the ‘normal’.” He further explains that it was used to describe “those who refused to conform to the moral dictates of society.” (Beauty without Sensuality Pg. 26) Degeneracy was used by Hitler to describe anything that went against what he considered normal, or any form of art that was different from the classical style of German art. Modern artists in
Hitler saw degeneracy in Gustav Klimt’s art because it didn’t depict the way the real world looks. He saw art like Klimt’s as lies and deceit, going so far as to say that “God denied the grace of truly artistic talent, and in its place has awarded them the gift of jabbering or deception.” ( Hitler Speech) Hitler thought that ideal “German Art” depicted reality as it truly was, as it was seen by the human eye. He did not approve of “meadows blue, skies green, clouds sulphur yellow,” as he states in his speech. He thought that possibly these artists saw things differently, and suffered from an eye disease. Also, the human bodies in Klimt’s paintings are not perfect and god-like, which deviates from Hitler’s ideal Aryan society. The main theme of Klimt’s paintings was often love, passion, and sensuality. Hitler disproved of this message in art because “of what it symbolized, namely, a revolt against respectability as a principle of unity and order- thus, the destruction of the immutable values upon which society supposedly rested.” (Beauty Pg. 25) He found these images threatening because the artists “try vehemently to foist these products of their misinterpretation upon the age we live in,” corrupting the German people, and causing them to stray from the Nazi, and therefore “German” way of life.
The body in art was the main source of degeneracy because Hitler was obsessed with creating the perfect Aryan race. Blemishes of any kind were simply not tolerated. Humans in art had to have the body of a Greek god. Hitler saw this degenerate are as “misrepresentations” of the body, and he didn’t want his perfect race to be depicted that way. He wanted the world to see Germans as superior in every way. In Hitler’s view, these Modern Artists showed “the present population of our nation only as rotten cretins,” devaluing the German race. To enforce his Nazi ideals to the public, he had to convince them that Germans must be flawless, and Modernist representation of the body threatened this.
George Mosse argued that beauty with sensuality is a threat to the social order and represents deviation from accepted norms. He states that it symbolizes “a revolt against respectability as a principle of unity and order.” (Beauty Pg. 25) Beauty with sensuality invokes passion and lust. It was thought that these feelings brought out the primitive animal instinct in the people, causing them to act uncontrollably (Beauty Pg. 25). Beauty without sensuality controlled passion, and allowed the German people to be viewed as civilized and superior.
3)
The image above depicts an Iraqi child who was mutilated as a result of a bombing during the ongoing war in
2 comments:
I really appreciate the point you made about authoritarian thinkers and their feelings on art. There is a bit of a dual nature in authoritarian thinkers approach to art. While they know it can be their destructive tool, they also realize it can be their most powerful. Then it becomes more of an issue of how do you manipulate art the best to control the people the most effectively. It truly is extraordinary to observe just how powerful art can be in shaping a person's beliefs.
I also found the image of the mutilated child to be a very good example of images authoritarian thinkers would find crippling to their regimes (though that's not to say the initiator of the Iraq War was an authoritarian thinker). When I look at that image, I think back on images of Jewish workers when the Allies arrived at the concentration camps. A striking difference, however, is that images of many atrocities that occurred during WWII were not released until after the war, whereas these image from Iraq surfaced rather soon after the start of the war. I wonder how deeply this has affected our perception of the war and war in general.
In response to Ashley G.'s comment, I just wanted to say that with the image I choose of the mutilated child in Iraq, in no way was I trying to say that President Bush is an authoritarian thinker. Rather, I choose an image that depicted a body as "degenerate" and that could possibly have political consequences.
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