Ted Henderson Post 4

Part I:

In his inaugural speech originally published as ‘Der Fuhrer eroffnet die Grosse Deutsche Kunstausstellung 1937’, authoritarian leader Adolf Hitler made quite clear the fact that he found certain styles of art, most notably those of Germany’s avant-garde artists during his time as its dictator, threatening to his ideal image of the nation. This speech displays Hitler’s description of those German artists which utilized cutting edge techniques for their craft as “…men to whom God has denied the grace of a truly artistic talent, and in its place awarded them the gift of jabbering or deception…” (an infinitely ironic statement considering the unparalleled deception and round-about manner by which Hitler convinced the German public of countless untruths). In hurling such blatant slurs at the modern German artists of his time, and in his vehemently expressed indignant feelings for those up-and-coming styles of German art in the 1930’s, Hitler made it extremely obvious that he found such art to be a great threat to the state of being which he was attempting to facilitate in Germany as its dictator. Were he his wishes to have been fulfilled, all such art would have been completely erased from the public eye with the mere snap of his stiff little fingers.

At this point, the obvious question is, why did Hitler, and to speak more generally, why have totalitarian leaders throughout history displayed such feelings of personal threat and threat to what they see as an “ideal environment” in regards to specific art forms, in most cases that art which is not conservative or traditionalist by nature? This question can be at least somewhat answered by examining Book X of Plato’s Republic. In this writing, Plato expresses his basic belief that any art which is not uplifting of or progressive to a “well-ordered State” should, without exception, be judged swiftly, harshly, and sent away from such a “State”. Being an open believer in the efficiency of a government resembling a monarchy over the sort of aristocratic democracy which was utilized by Athens during his lifetime, Plato most likely thought

that an ideal nation’s art would depict only patriotic, conservative, and morally sound images which glorified the beliefs and practices of its sole leader. Images and art that didn’t conform to these standards, in the minds of those, for instance Plato (or Hitler), who promoted authoritarianism, were seen as directly disobeying, and perhaps even protesting the very foundation of their nation’s government. Hitler, as was made grotesquely clear in his many efforts to “purify” the country over which he held immense power, held a vision of a unified, uniform, and utterly obedient German civilian body. When artists such as those of the Cubism, Dadaism, Futurism, and Impressionism movements created art that depicted images which did not meet this traditionalist standard, they were immediately looked upon by Hitler as a deviation from his image of Germany as a collective and submissive unit, as opposed to a group of free-spirited intellectuals (oh the humanity) with a propensity for individual expression and (dare I say it?) free will. Hitler’s vision of Germany was not creative in the sense that it consisted of an emphasis on the individual and his or her being able to carry themselves, or even genetically look unique and in some way out of the ordinary. In the same way, Adolf Hitler did not wish his public to be able to view, and in doing so possibly be influenced by paintings which, by nature, where not ordinary or of standard form, and thus the avant-garde paintings were inconsistent with his overall wishes for Germany, and had to be done away with.

Another reason, other than that outlined in Plato’s Republic, as for why a dictator such as Hitler might see modern art as such a threat to his rule is touched upon in the suggested reading by Ursula A. Ginder, most notably the “Cultural Policy: Goebbles’ Modernism vs. Rosenberg and Hitler’s Traditionalism” portion of her piece. In this section of Ginder’s essay, she states that, “Like the people he surrounded himself with, he (Hitler) lacked sophisticated knowledge of the many trends in modern art beginning with French Impressionism.” Ginder goes on to assert Hitler’s having been “A frustrated artist who was denied access to the Art Academy in Vienna twice,” and that, “he sublimated his festering insecurity by attacking all those artists who succeeded – the Dadaists, the Futurists, the Expressionists.” Thus, the new account as to why Hitler felt so threatened by this art and its creators which Ginder is presenting is, put quite frankly, the emotional tyrant’s own indignant jealousy. Hitler, after being rejected twice by a school which even held somewhat more traditionalist standards for art forms similar to his own, looked upon these edgy and out-of-the-box painters who had obtained the success which he so longed for and yet was unable to obtain with contempt and deep rooted malice which could only have stemmed from his own sense of inferiority. The coupling of this festering malice toward those artists who achieved the status and recognition which Hitler so coveted and his position of practically unlimited power was a recipe for his taking out his frustrations and anger on such modern-artists, deeming their work “degenerate art”. Hitler even went to such lengths as setting up two opposing exhibits, one being titled ‘True German Art’ and meant to display the dictators idea of such with its traditionalist pieces, and the other being deemed ‘Degenerate Art’, set up in attempts of “exposing” the fallacy in modernist art forms and movements. Unfortunately for Adolf, his plan to reform the German public back to an appreciation of a more formal style of artwork through these two exhibits backfired when ‘Degenerate Art’ received far more attention and commentary than the less intriguing ‘True German Art’. Woops!

Part II:

Adler Jankel was a prominent contributor to the Expressionist movement that took place in Germany during the nation’s time under Nazi Party rule. The Polish painter was one of the many whose works were removed from German museums by the Nazis in the 1930s and eventually placed into Hitler’s ‘Degenerate Art’ exhibit where they were mercilessly scorned and ridiculed. Before delving into why Jankel might have been chosen by Hitler, among others of the Expressionist movement, as an example of an unworthy and “degenerate” artist, one might wish to analyze the formalities of the man’s work and what specific elements it brought to the overall table of modernist art during the 1930s.

Adler Jankel’s paintings, most notably those depicting the human form, are certainly surrealist by nature. His work presents human-like shapes and figures that are significantly altered from the realistic idea of the human body. In many examples of Jankel’s art, these figures appear as disfigured, strangely colored, and overall exaggerated proportionally. In spite of the seeming odd and asymmetrical manner by which Jankel depicted the human form, his paintings are by no means lacking in beauty, movement, and character, and in fact, in my opinion, his work, unrealistic as it is, holds many more examples of these elements than any of the formal works which were shown in Hitler’s ‘True German Art’ exhibit. With its rather extreme aesthetic, Adler Jankel’s work is able to spark a considerable amount of excitement within the viewer through its implied sense of movement which can be greatly attributed to the unusual, choppy, and often times fuzzy manner by which Jankel portrays human bodies. Though these figures found in Jankel’s work are without a doubt void of any formal or traditional sense of human beauty (i.e. Michelangelo’s Statue of David), they are seldom lacking in beauty with their vibrant color schemes and in the very real emotion that is deeply embedded within their faces and forms. To me, because of the brilliant use of emotion, of motion, and of shear unrest within his work, Adler Jankel created something far more real than the lifeless, emotionless, but impeccably Arian faces which filled the halls of Hitler’s ‘True German Art’.

The concept of degeneracy or being a degenerate, according an online dictionary, is “to fall below a normal or desirable level in physical, mental, or moral qualities; deteriorate.” Thus in describing the modernist art of his time as being “degenerate”, Hitler was making the claim that such work was the example of a fall below the acceptable and desired physical, mental, and moral qualities that should be displayed in artwork. The likelihood is that Hitler viewed the individually expressive nature of modern art during his time as its most degenerate component. One of his biggest policies as the leader of a people was to relieve the masses under his authority of any impurities so as to create a more perfect, Arian race of “flawless” beings. Any sort of diversion from the attempted organization and order of the group was viewed as an impurity, and thus, to be a distinct individual with distinct thoughts and feelings was to taint the otherwise sparkling face of the unity of the people. Thus, the uniqueness and disorganized nature of art such as that of Adler Jankel, to Hitler, represented a major threat to this policy of likeness, unity, and all for “the group”, nothing for “the individual”. The somewhat amorphous depictions of the human body in modernist artwork was most likely the biggest focus of Hitler’s ridicule of these cutting-edge aesthetics because of the fact that it directly related to his utter obsession with symmetry, similarity, and organization of human beings in reality. As is written in countless history books, Hitler had a very specific idea of the ideal human race, his “Arian Race”, as it is now referred to. For the human bodies painted by Expressionist artists and those of other modern art movements of the time to have been presented in such multicolored, multi-shaped, and emotionally excited/expressive a manner was, in Hitler’s own twisted mind, a direct regression from the efforts of his regime and political party to “purify” Germany as a nation, and in doing so, rid it of nearly all dissimilarity among its people. These bodies shown in modernist paintings were not of the same form which Hitler would have liked to seen filling his nations borders, and thus, in his opinion, were unfit for public viewing.

Though Hitler made the assertion that this modernist art was nothing short of degenerate and repulsive, an interesting thought can be noted when analyzing the type of work that was displayed in the ‘True German Art’ exhibit, which was highly acclaimed by the dictator. As is portrayed in George Mosse’s argument, sensuality ruins the very effects that beautiful art are meant to have on a society, and in fact, adding this element to art is to “reject social and sexual norms”. Mosse obviously felt that for art to reject such social norms was unacceptable and detrimental to a society’s well being, and, as has been painstakingly described in the above paragraphs, Hitler shared with Mosse this view of the amount of a threat that art can pose to civilized society. One may claim that much of the modernist German art of Hitler’s day was overly-sensual, often depicting lovers involved in close and intimate contact, and one who shared Hitler’s views on such styles of art may even say that this sensuality contributed greatly to the work’s degenerate nature, but a question to such a harsh critic of modern art must be raised: was not the work found in the ‘True German Art’ exhibit often extremely sensual by nature? In fact, most all of the female figures in the paintings which ‘True German Art’ displayed were either meant to be seen as maternal, and thus heavily clothed and utterly humble, or as objects of physical (and one might say perhaps sexual) beauty, and in these cases, completely nude. I’m sure very few people would try to defend the thought that a Greek mythological painting of Paris handing a golden apple to a robust and fully nude Aphrodite is not at all sensual. Nor would one take a glance at a sculpture of two extremely muscular, and extremely nude males, each holding the hand of the other, and not at least sense some level of homoeroticism in the piece’s aesthetic. Artwork such as this, the like of which filled each and every room of Hitler’s ‘True German Art’ exhibit, is, without a doubt, in some considerable way sensual by nature. Thus, some, such as Mosse, might comment that the very art which Hitler deemed uplifting of the German State was, in its own sense, detrimental to certain social norms, and subsequently detrimental to German society.

Part III: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b8/Flagonfireimage2.jpg/300px-Flagonfireimage2.jpg

The above is a link to a webpage displaying an image of an American flag set on fire. Flag burning has been a very controversial issue within the borders of the United States for a number of years, and is a prime example of what some consider to be a form of artistic expression and that others consider to be unbelievably harmful to the U.S. as a nation and a society. The authoritarian worry about art that the above image exemplifies is civilian protest of government. One trait that seems consistent among all totalitarian leaders throughout history is there belief that, in order to maintain a completely unified image of strength within their nation, any and all protest of their rules, regulations, and behaviors as leaders must be completely wiped away from view by the public. This absolute contempt for any form of government protest on the part of an authoritarian leader (i.e. Adolf Hitler) most likely stems from the thought that, if a protest group were to gain any sort of steam and size with their views of a dictator’s incompetence or tyrannical brutality (views that very well might be accurate), this group, in time, might gain and utilize the ability to overthrow their governing leader. Certainly, in the case of a dictator such as Hitler, this fear of being overtaken by any sort of protesting group can grow into such a paranoia that, in the leader’s eyes, even the most seemingly insignificant bit of government protest, such as a piece of art displaying a burning national flag, poses some sort of threat to the unity of the society’s future submission to this leader, and thus must be removed from the public eye immediately.

Citation:

1.) Stern Gallery: Adler Jankel, 9/19/07

http://www.sternart.com/artist.asp?ID=14

2.) Nehama Guralnik: Adler Jankel, Grove Art Online, 9/19/07

© Oxford University Press 2007

http://www.groveart.com/shared/views/article.html?from=search&session_search_id=288550293&hitnum=3&section=art.000520

3.) The New York Times, EDWARD ROTHSTEIN, Published: January 8, 2005

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/08/arts/design/08expe.html?_r=1&ei=5070&en=bf76aba3035069ba&ex=1190088000&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1190251726-ReqhQQqCsNp+dJ9vmdh5SQ