Erica Tibbetts
What is so threatening about art to authoritarian thinkers or regimes?
Art is about the individual: the artist, the viewer, the critic. No one can decide what someone else will take from a piece of art, it is almost entirely subjective, depending on what the artist or viewer brings with them in past experiences, knowledge, beliefs etc. This means that art can be whatever a person wants it to be and allows for a lot of creative thought. Art can incite passion, it can create rage, it can cause revolutions. Even if art does not directly spark a movement, it can plant seeds of restlessness of discomfort within a person or people’s minds. In the long run, this restlessness makes people chafe against the people, institution or social norms that are holding them down. Art does not directly cause people to rise against an authoritarian regime, but it allows them the room, the thinking power, the creative, independent knowledge they need to do so. The last thing an authoritarian regime needs is freedom of thought. The whole idea of such a government is that it rules without being questioned, and it rules over a downtrodden and unquestioning mass of automatons. In the case of the degenerate art, the Nazi’s were trying to diminish the possibility of freedom of thought by telling viewers what they were supposed to get from the art. They tried to limit freedom of thought by making the art appear ugly, evil, the opposite of everything good, pure, and essentially German. By doing this they make the art not art. Traditionally, as Deveraux points out, art has been attached to “the good” and when the two concepts are detached a viewer has trouble rationalizing what he or she is seeing. The Nazi’s took the art they were afraid of, the art they were afraid would make people think, feel too much, and they turned it into a sideshow, an example of what was wrong. Thus, they turn the very thing that could hurt them into something that everyone has no choice but to detest.
Emil Nolde (1867-1956), was a founder of the German Expressionist movement called The Bridge or Die Brucke. His medium of choice was printmaking, and his pieces are blocky, filled with contrasting shapes, colors and forms. Although his work is not “realistic” in the sense of being totally mimetic, he does capture the essence of the figures he depicts.
Art is about the individual: the artist, the viewer, the critic. No one can decide what someone else will take from a piece of art, it is almost entirely subjective, depending on what the artist or viewer brings with them in past experiences, knowledge, beliefs etc. This means that art can be whatever a person wants it to be and allows for a lot of creative thought. Art can incite passion, it can create rage, it can cause revolutions. Even if art does not directly spark a movement, it can plant seeds of restlessness of discomfort within a person or people’s minds. In the long run, this restlessness makes people chafe against the people, institution or social norms that are holding them down. Art does not directly cause people to rise against an authoritarian regime, but it allows them the room, the thinking power, the creative, independent knowledge they need to do so. The last thing an authoritarian regime needs is freedom of thought. The whole idea of such a government is that it rules without being questioned, and it rules over a downtrodden and unquestioning mass of automatons. In the case of the degenerate art, the Nazi’s were trying to diminish the possibility of freedom of thought by telling viewers what they were supposed to get from the art. They tried to limit freedom of thought by making the art appear ugly, evil, the opposite of everything good, pure, and essentially German. By doing this they make the art not art. Traditionally, as Deveraux points out, art has been attached to “the good” and when the two concepts are detached a viewer has trouble rationalizing what he or she is seeing. The Nazi’s took the art they were afraid of, the art they were afraid would make people think, feel too much, and they turned it into a sideshow, an example of what was wrong. Thus, they turn the very thing that could hurt them into something that everyone has no choice but to detest.
Emil Nolde (1867-1956), was a founder of the German Expressionist movement called The Bridge or Die Brucke. His medium of choice was printmaking, and his pieces are blocky, filled with contrasting shapes, colors and forms. Although his work is not “realistic” in the sense of being totally mimetic, he does capture the essence of the figures he depicts.
In Madonna he captures the tenderness of the bond between mother and child and the religious implication, while evident in the title and the traditional pose are not exactly necessary to give the piece meaning and a sense of beauty. The mother is not quite the traditional “virgin”. Her breasts are exposed, her hair is short, her eyelashes long, her features exaggerated and not depicted with the usual delicate purity. However, she is still beautiful, she is still motherly, caring, inspiring. Her head is slightly larger than rules of proportion would dictate, her fingers are slightly stubby and do not contain much detail. The whole piece is low on detail, yet the use of shadow gives the figures a sense of three-dimensionality. The shadow in the mother’s neck, across her chest and along the back of her neck and arms give her a semblance of reality and allow the viewer to identify her and get a sense of her form. The child has some of the same characteristics as the mother, rather than being the typical “baby Jesus” his features are irregular and bulky. His face looks more grown-up and serious than it is usually depicted. There is less detail in the swaddling and the figure of the baby, but his general form is still readable. Nolde deals with the beauty of the figures in generalities and in the intensity of their connection. The bodies are recognizable and beautiful, without being detailed or concerned with proportion. He goes for the truth of emotion with this piece instead of truth of physical form.
In The Prophet the same basic rules apply. The figure is very recognizable as an elderly man,
wizened, serious, with long facial hair. However, again, there is not much stress placed upon realistic detail: the eyes droop, the brows are overpowering, the forehead and hairline are almost indistinguishable, the nose is a thick black line and the moustache, mouth and beard are very basically constructed. This basic construction adds to the power of the piece though. This is not a man concerned with physical beauty or detail orientated looks, he is concerned with thought, with something higher than the physical. Again, Nolde captures the emotional essence of the figure, and not the reality (as far as physical features go). He treats the body, the human form, as a conduit for human emotion.
a) Degeneracy is defined as "to depart from its kind or genus, to fall from its proper or ancestral quality" (wikipedia). It is used to describe a person, thing or group that has moved away from what its perceived form, use or character should be. In the case of degenerate art, as described by the Nazis in the article by George L. Mosse, any deviation from reality and towards a realm of sensuality, mystery, and diversity is a divergence from what are should be. To the Nazis, “the men and women in Nazi painting and sculpture embodied the proper morality and sexual behavior. Beauty without sensuality was demanded of artists and sculptors, a beauty that had to reflect the generally accepted moral standards that the Nazis championed as their own” (Mosse 1). This means that no new ideas can be posed, no questioning of the nature of reality can be done, no movement from a strict adherence to the real, to the conservative, masculine, controlled idea of life that the Nazis held. They wanted art to be seen as a form of propaganda, not experienced as a form of liberating beauty. In a way, the art the Nazis championed was itself a deviation because it was sterile and controlled, almost the opposite of what art should be. Degeneracy then becomes something that is subjective, a term defined by what the majority or those in power describe as the “norm”. The Nazis defined any art that was not realistic and sterile as degenerate because it went against what they viewed as “safe”. Any society could define their own set of norms and label any sort of art “degenerate” as long as they controlled the space in which the art was displayed, the media which described the art, and the society in which it was viewed.
b) The prints I looked up could be seen as a threat to Hitler’s idea of the body politic because they do not display the perfect, healthy, Aryan, young, male human he described as the ideal. In both the prints I included, the figures are distorted and either older, younger or female. And this female is not the typical German girl either, she has her breasts bared, she appears to have dark hair and disproportioned features. This would seem an abomination to Hitler. The worst part would be that the scene is still beautiful, still has strong religious and motherly ties, still creates emotion in the viewer even though the figures depicted are not the ideal. This would worry Hitler because his whole point was that in order to have a happy functioning society, the people in it would have to be perfect with no physical imperfections. The same could be said of The Prophet. Here is an elderly man, clearly past his prime, with imperfect facial features. Yet, he contains (or seems to contain) great knowledge and some sort of power not contained in his looks. This sort of internal power, would seem degenerate to Hitler who probably didn’t like any sort of hidden reserves of intellect. The “body politic” he proposed was meant to show a glorified yet flat version of the German ideal, The Prophet and Madonna do not embody this idealized version.
c) The body is the quintessential microcosm of any institution, political party, country or group. Hitler compares his defeated country to a body because the ideas of disease, distress, despair are analogous in both a human and a nation. The body has symptoms that can easily be related to a country, and the body is the most essentially human “thing”. So, in order for Hitler to portray the idea of a healthy nation, he must have art that shows healthy, German bodies.
Hitler also talks about the difference between an art of “times” and an art of “peoples”. He is against any sort of art that changes every year; he is against modern art which distorts the body and which claims a different “slogan” or “cliché” every year (Hitler 440). Hitler says, “But we National-Socialists know only one mortality, and that is the mortality of the people itself… As long as a people exists, however, it is the fixed pole on the flight of fleeting appearances” (Hitler 440). Hitler is saying that the strength or liveliness of the country lies with that of the people. If the people are portrayed unrealistically, disproportionately, and as imperfect in art, then this portrayal will spread to the minds and hearts of the viewers and corrupt their idea of what they and their country should be like. Hitler needs the unified support of a perfect people in order to reach his goals for his country. Like a person, Hitler says that art cannot change; it can change, “as little as the character and the blood of our people” (440). So the changeable nature of art would result in the changeable nature of the people, and thus the country. Hitler also sees “modern artists” as physically imperfect themselves; he claims their perception of the world must be skewed and that he wants to “forbid these pitiful misfortunes who quite obviously suffer from an eye disease, to try vehemently to foist these products of their misinterpretation upon the age we live in” (441). He sees modern art as a product of imperfect humanity.
d) Beauty with sensuality is only a threat to a society that needs to control the art, minds and ideas of its people. Mosse points out that, “Beauty with sensuality presented a danger to society because of what is symbolized, namely, a revolt against respectability as a principle of unity and order” (Mosse 25). Sensuality is something a government, a leader a social norm cannot control. Sensuality, like art, belongs to a realm outside of the everyday, the quotidian, the political. In a society that embraces personal freedom, expression and creativity, beauty with sensuality is not a problem because it does not threaten the status quo, it does not allow a downtrodden people to rise up, it just allows a people to express themselves. Mosse writes that, “The body had become an abstract symbol of Aryan beauty…Sensuality was transcended by an alignment with Greek form: figures that could be worshipped but neither desired nor loved” (Mosse 28). The body could not be seen to have neither the weakness of desires, nor the power to create desire, it was simply a representation of the ideal, of the ideal man and of the ideal nation. Any sensuality would destroy the impervious nature of the body. One of the interesting points Mosse makes is about the difference between public and private art, how art displayed in private could be sensual, show nudity, etc. this shows a sort of double-standard that shows a kink in the Nazi façade.
3.
The image I chose shows a young man gagged by an American flag. The context in which I found this image was an article dealing with censorship. The American flag is supposed to be a symbol of the ideals and qualities the United States was founded on, including the constitution, and thus the amendments, including the freedom of speech. This young man has had his freedom of speech taken away by the very thing which should be symbolizing his right to speak. The depiction “could” be considered degenerate due to the stylized nature of the figure’s hair and features. This is not a photographic likeness, although it is very realistic. I say “could” because I don’t think any art should be labeled as degenerate. Art is anything it wants to be, so there is no way for it to stray from its original/traditional form.
This picture definitely has political ramifications because it is commenting on the stifling nature of the US government. Although this piece does not tell us what is being censored, the message comes across. The patriotism, the conservatism, the very nature of the super power that is the US is stifling to certain people and ideals because these ideas and people do not fit with the image our nation is trying to convey. Any sort of divergence form unity on issues such as what is acceptable behavior, war, etc casts a bad light on the country, so the government attempts to hush it up. This piece is an attempt to shed light on the nature of this sort of censorship and it portrays this message in an ironic, thought provoking way.
In The Prophet the same basic rules apply. The figure is very recognizable as an elderly man,
wizened, serious, with long facial hair. However, again, there is not much stress placed upon realistic detail: the eyes droop, the brows are overpowering, the forehead and hairline are almost indistinguishable, the nose is a thick black line and the moustache, mouth and beard are very basically constructed. This basic construction adds to the power of the piece though. This is not a man concerned with physical beauty or detail orientated looks, he is concerned with thought, with something higher than the physical. Again, Nolde captures the emotional essence of the figure, and not the reality (as far as physical features go). He treats the body, the human form, as a conduit for human emotion.a) Degeneracy is defined as "to depart from its kind or genus, to fall from its proper or ancestral quality" (wikipedia). It is used to describe a person, thing or group that has moved away from what its perceived form, use or character should be. In the case of degenerate art, as described by the Nazis in the article by George L. Mosse, any deviation from reality and towards a realm of sensuality, mystery, and diversity is a divergence from what are should be. To the Nazis, “the men and women in Nazi painting and sculpture embodied the proper morality and sexual behavior. Beauty without sensuality was demanded of artists and sculptors, a beauty that had to reflect the generally accepted moral standards that the Nazis championed as their own” (Mosse 1). This means that no new ideas can be posed, no questioning of the nature of reality can be done, no movement from a strict adherence to the real, to the conservative, masculine, controlled idea of life that the Nazis held. They wanted art to be seen as a form of propaganda, not experienced as a form of liberating beauty. In a way, the art the Nazis championed was itself a deviation because it was sterile and controlled, almost the opposite of what art should be. Degeneracy then becomes something that is subjective, a term defined by what the majority or those in power describe as the “norm”. The Nazis defined any art that was not realistic and sterile as degenerate because it went against what they viewed as “safe”. Any society could define their own set of norms and label any sort of art “degenerate” as long as they controlled the space in which the art was displayed, the media which described the art, and the society in which it was viewed.
b) The prints I looked up could be seen as a threat to Hitler’s idea of the body politic because they do not display the perfect, healthy, Aryan, young, male human he described as the ideal. In both the prints I included, the figures are distorted and either older, younger or female. And this female is not the typical German girl either, she has her breasts bared, she appears to have dark hair and disproportioned features. This would seem an abomination to Hitler. The worst part would be that the scene is still beautiful, still has strong religious and motherly ties, still creates emotion in the viewer even though the figures depicted are not the ideal. This would worry Hitler because his whole point was that in order to have a happy functioning society, the people in it would have to be perfect with no physical imperfections. The same could be said of The Prophet. Here is an elderly man, clearly past his prime, with imperfect facial features. Yet, he contains (or seems to contain) great knowledge and some sort of power not contained in his looks. This sort of internal power, would seem degenerate to Hitler who probably didn’t like any sort of hidden reserves of intellect. The “body politic” he proposed was meant to show a glorified yet flat version of the German ideal, The Prophet and Madonna do not embody this idealized version.
c) The body is the quintessential microcosm of any institution, political party, country or group. Hitler compares his defeated country to a body because the ideas of disease, distress, despair are analogous in both a human and a nation. The body has symptoms that can easily be related to a country, and the body is the most essentially human “thing”. So, in order for Hitler to portray the idea of a healthy nation, he must have art that shows healthy, German bodies.
Hitler also talks about the difference between an art of “times” and an art of “peoples”. He is against any sort of art that changes every year; he is against modern art which distorts the body and which claims a different “slogan” or “cliché” every year (Hitler 440). Hitler says, “But we National-Socialists know only one mortality, and that is the mortality of the people itself… As long as a people exists, however, it is the fixed pole on the flight of fleeting appearances” (Hitler 440). Hitler is saying that the strength or liveliness of the country lies with that of the people. If the people are portrayed unrealistically, disproportionately, and as imperfect in art, then this portrayal will spread to the minds and hearts of the viewers and corrupt their idea of what they and their country should be like. Hitler needs the unified support of a perfect people in order to reach his goals for his country. Like a person, Hitler says that art cannot change; it can change, “as little as the character and the blood of our people” (440). So the changeable nature of art would result in the changeable nature of the people, and thus the country. Hitler also sees “modern artists” as physically imperfect themselves; he claims their perception of the world must be skewed and that he wants to “forbid these pitiful misfortunes who quite obviously suffer from an eye disease, to try vehemently to foist these products of their misinterpretation upon the age we live in” (441). He sees modern art as a product of imperfect humanity.
d) Beauty with sensuality is only a threat to a society that needs to control the art, minds and ideas of its people. Mosse points out that, “Beauty with sensuality presented a danger to society because of what is symbolized, namely, a revolt against respectability as a principle of unity and order” (Mosse 25). Sensuality is something a government, a leader a social norm cannot control. Sensuality, like art, belongs to a realm outside of the everyday, the quotidian, the political. In a society that embraces personal freedom, expression and creativity, beauty with sensuality is not a problem because it does not threaten the status quo, it does not allow a downtrodden people to rise up, it just allows a people to express themselves. Mosse writes that, “The body had become an abstract symbol of Aryan beauty…Sensuality was transcended by an alignment with Greek form: figures that could be worshipped but neither desired nor loved” (Mosse 28). The body could not be seen to have neither the weakness of desires, nor the power to create desire, it was simply a representation of the ideal, of the ideal man and of the ideal nation. Any sensuality would destroy the impervious nature of the body. One of the interesting points Mosse makes is about the difference between public and private art, how art displayed in private could be sensual, show nudity, etc. this shows a sort of double-standard that shows a kink in the Nazi façade.
3.
The image I chose shows a young man gagged by an American flag. The context in which I found this image was an article dealing with censorship. The American flag is supposed to be a symbol of the ideals and qualities the United States was founded on, including the constitution, and thus the amendments, including the freedom of speech. This young man has had his freedom of speech taken away by the very thing which should be symbolizing his right to speak. The depiction “could” be considered degenerate due to the stylized nature of the figure’s hair and features. This is not a photographic likeness, although it is very realistic. I say “could” because I don’t think any art should be labeled as degenerate. Art is anything it wants to be, so there is no way for it to stray from its original/traditional form.
This picture definitely has political ramifications because it is commenting on the stifling nature of the US government. Although this piece does not tell us what is being censored, the message comes across. The patriotism, the conservatism, the very nature of the super power that is the US is stifling to certain people and ideals because these ideas and people do not fit with the image our nation is trying to convey. Any sort of divergence form unity on issues such as what is acceptable behavior, war, etc casts a bad light on the country, so the government attempts to hush it up. This piece is an attempt to shed light on the nature of this sort of censorship and it portrays this message in an ironic, thought provoking way.
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