post 4

Justin Wright
post 4

1. Art can express more than words. Art has the power to mirror, transcend, or manipulate reality, according to the artist’s wishes. This is one reason art is threatening to authoritarian regimes – the government wants to have total control over the realities of its citizens, but the artist’s creations are a triumph of individuality.

Plato’s theory of censorship expressed in The Republic (Book X) uses authoritarian logic. Plato believed that art that was unwholesome or rebellious was undesirable because it made the citizens of a state believe that injustice exists there. This would make people lose their faith in the ruling government because they would perceive it as ineffective at stopping social problems. Plato also feared that cowardice or immorality in art would taint the minds of the populace, and make them begin to do these things once they know of their existence, because they seemed more common once there were examples in poetry or theater. Ultimately such unwholesome art would cause discord and strife among the citizens, and the state would decline as a result. Thus censorship can control these problems by keeping the minds of the people clean, and only letting them see examples of justice, valor, and beauty.

Susan Sontag proposes the existence of a “fascist aesthetic.” (“Fascinating Fascism,” p. 7) Fascist art depicts reality exactly how Plato wanted it to be – only perfection was allowed. Nazi art only included people who were physically perfect. Films such as Triumph of the Will showed people in masses, obedient to their leader. Fascist art is an example to the people of how they are expected to be, and what the state stands for.

What runs contrary to the fascist aesthetic is the individuality of artists. Artists have a power to replicate reality, or distort it. Authoritarians like the power of art as propaganda, since the representation of fascist art is pro-state. This type of art is always very close to reality – good mimesis, but misleading because it is too perfect. It is just close enough to reality to seem real, and this is why authoritarians like it. Art that is realistic enough to be used for the fascist aesthetic is all that is acceptable. Anything that challenges how reality is depicted in art is a threat, because all of the fascist art and propaganda the authoritarians have used to gain support has lost its effectiveness.

Artists express different opinions. Fascist art is interchangeable. There is only one way to make fascist art, so there is no individuality and works by different artists have the same style. But works by Picasso and Monet are easily differentiated by even those who are clueless about art, because these artists have unique styles. Obvious differences can be seen even among artists of the same style. Of course, authoritarians believe these different styles to cause discord. Even more threatening is when a work’s representation is something contrary to what the state stands for. In the case of Nazi Germany, Expressionists were always pacifists, and depicted war as cruel and barbaric. The Nazis thought war was the highest achievement of man. Therefore Expressionism was banned because it made the “good” to the Nazis look evil.

When art makes a point, or the avant-garde changes what can even be considered art, people will think about it, causing inconsistencies in opinion. Only art that is “eternal” as Hitler put it in his speech opening the ‘Great Exhibition of German Art,’ is acceptable in authoritarian government – art that lasts forever because it is only grandiose mimesis and has no meaning beyond reality.

2a. Degeneracy was defined in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries as a deviation from normality due to physical ailments that destroyed perception as well as the body. Degeneracy caused the state of decline in the quality of art, as perceived by the Nazis. The term is used to describe art that does not depict its subject in a realistic manner, or to artists that have done this in their work. Such artists were considered to actually perceive the world to look like their art due to medical degeneration, as Hitler said himself in his speech inaugurating the Great German Art Exhibition. Movements that were considered degenerate, such as Surrealism and Expressionism, were forbidden, regardless of their meaning or the artists themselves. Even Nazis who painted “degenerately” had their works put up for ridicule in Entartete Kunst.

2b. In the Surrealist art of Marc Chagall, there are dreamlike scenes where people do things impossible in reality. Chagall often depicted people floating, and his paintings are obviously reminiscent of dreams. There is enough realism to easily see what the subjects of his paintings are, in most of his works. The human form is rarely distorted much, but it is not painted with extreme emphasis on mimesis. There is blurriness in some paintings, but clarity in others. Chagall always uses shading that is stylistic, rather than realistic.

What would have offended Hitler about Chagall’s art is the unrealistic aspects, and the origins of Surrealism itself. A head with two faces, an animal with a yellow body and white head, a monster in the skyline of Paris, people floating, and a small girl clinging to the hair of a seemingly normally sized girl – all of these impossible, and degenerate to Hitler. The threats in these images, and the Surrealist movement in general, lie in its beginnings in psychology. Freud’s theories of the subconscious were gaining popularity at the time, and Surrealists explored the subconscious by trying free association in their art, or finding other ways to make their art more dreamlike and spontaneous, in order to portray they art of the inner mind. Freud was Jewish, and Hitler suppressed his ideas for that reason. Therefore Surrealism was threatening because it had ties to Freudian psychology, as well as degenerate forms of expression that Hitler thought were taking over the field of art and destroying the “good” forms, and tainting the public’s taste. Even the state itself was threatened by this art, because taxpayer money was spent on purchasing “degenerate” art for German museums. Hitler made it a point to show the acquisition price for the works in Entartete Kunst to show how the degenerates had scammed the nation of the taxpayer’s money.

2c. The human body is glorified in fascist aesthetics, which are really just borrowed Greco-Roman forms. The body was what was sacred to Nazis, rather than the mind, because the mind and intellectualism were considered Jewish and Bolshevist. So any art that distorted the body, or required the interpretation of the viewer, was considered degenerate. Only art that was plain and simple, and could be appreciated for its beauty alone without meaning, was good. Hitler thought that the criticism and interpretation of art was a Jewish scam, and that this intellectualism was only an excuse for poor works. Hitler even related the body to why degenerate art was created – he theorized that it was due to altered perceptions in the form of insanity, or a deformation of the eyes that caused people to see the world the same way as they painted or sculpted. A disease of the body was thought responsible for not exalting the body above the mind in art; a physical disease considered stronger and more probable than a conscious mental choice to create works this way.

2d. Beauty with sensuality presents a subject that can be shocking, offensive, or controversial. Art that goes against public morality in this way is often considered pornographic by the public. The reason that sensuality in art is a threat is that it goes against respectability, which is an integral part of the tradition of morality far back into history. Respectability downplays the sexual in an exchange for stability, in the form of family life and the persistence of tradition. The Nazis took anything sexual as a serious threat to their imposed morality. They tried to desexualize the nude body in art in order to display neoclassical “good German” art that put perfect bodies on display.

In a more general sense, challenging social norms is a threat to the social order, because the transition from one morality to another always involves chaos. Thus the constant flow of new styles of art, regarded as mere fads by Hitler, were causing chaos from changing what was acceptable. The realm of the subconscious mind had been untapped until the early 20^th century, and now Surrealism was beginning to make dreams and random, free creativity be acceptable as art, causing discord in the process. Criticism was flying, and public perceptions changed as the avant-garde pushed further and further beyond the traditional. Hitler solved this problem by making art eternal, by ending the cycle of chaos caused by transition and allowing only one art – German art.

3b. http://www.bigcitylit.com/spring07/images/articles/agora.jpg

“Agora” is an assembly of 106 iron sculptures in downtown Chicago. Each sculpture is a nine foot tall headless body. These sculptures would obviously be considered degenerate because they lack the details that define realistic sculpture – muscles, proportion, and most noticeably heads. The sculptures are made from an “industrial” material rather than traditional marble or bronze. “Agora” downplays the most beautiful parts of the human body by omission. The lack of heads removes personality from the sculptures, and turns it into an almost shapeless and anonymous mob.

Politically, “Agora” is "the most controversial art installation in Chicago in a long time," according to Grant Park Advisory President Bob O’Neil. Chicago residents both praise the work, and complain of its lack of beauty in such a public and visible place. Even more inflammatory is that there is quite a bit of other “degenerate” art in downtown Chicago. Traditionalists bemoan the use of taxpayer money to purchase art like “Agora” and force it into public view. “Agora” was actually donated by the artist.

Sources: http://www.bigcitylit.com/bigcitylit.php?inc=spring07/articles Accessed 9/19/2007