1. Art, as a part of a group of people’s culture, has the opportunity to influence large populations into thinking or feeling a certain way about an event in history, a controversial topic, or a political argument, among other things. This causes political leaders, especially rulers with more centralized and absolute power, to essentially fear art. Art can be considered a dictator’s best friend or his greatest enemy. Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will was condoned and praised by Hitler because it influenced people to support his cause. This would be a strong example where art is a friend to a ruler. Riefenstahl’s movies were later criticized by Susan Sontag in her article “Fascinating Fascism” for their ability to influence the public to support Hitler. On the other hand, anti-Nazi art influenced people to question Hitler’s motives. In Beauty without Sensuality, Mosse states that, “beauty with sensuality presented a danger to society because of what it symbolized, namely, a revolt against respectability as a principle of unity and order” (Mosse, p. 1). Art that inspired a revolt wasn’t accepted by Hitler because he was, in essence, that principle of unity and order. If art inspired those individuals to rebel against order, Hitler and his government might be the order that the people would be inspired to rebel against.
2. Expressionism was an art movement during the 20th century where artists tended to make their art evoke certain emotions into its audience. Expressionist art is rarely viewed as happy or enlivening but rather tends to have a strongly depressing tone. Edvard Munch was responsible for many great paintings during the German Expressionist movement. Edvard suffered greatly from depression and anxiety. His paintings, one of which is an expression of his sister’s death, tend to evoke the unsettling emotions he felt during his life. The people are often featured hunched over in a mourning position dressed in black. Some other paintings with more color show individuals with no facial expression at all. It evokes a dreary feeling, like there is no hope in the world or even in the world of art. Their figures are often bloated, as if their emotion is too much for them to handle. The bloating is a physical response to the amount of anxiety and commotion that they feel going on in their heads and hearts.
- The concept of degeneracy is any modern form of art, under the Nazi rule, was discredited as un-German art. Any Jewish artist or Bolshevik artist was discredited on such grounds. Hitler used degenerate art to discredit artists of a nature that he didn’t personally approve of. Those artist who were labeled degenerates lost teaching positions and credibility as artists.
- I think Hitler described Munch’s art as degenerate because he personally was unable to create such art. Although a theory that is not explored by other researches, it seems practical that Hitler labeled artists who created art that he wasn’t able to accomplish as degenerates. This art was able to influence the masses away from Hitler’s political regime. It influenced people to question his rule. Obviously this posed a problem for Hitler, so the creation of “degenerate” art was a defense mechanism to regain any lost power.
- The human body was a recurring theme throughout the Nazi regime. Note that Hitler supported research on twins’ genetic makeup, different races bodies’, and other invasive procedures on bodies. He was obviously fascinated by the human body, consistently making references through metaphors in his speech. Also realize that Hitler was never able to draw or paint the human body. This might create a fascination and potentially a compulsive obsession with other artists’ ability to portray the human body whether through traditional technique or creative modernism. I think Hitler was angry that such individuals who stepped out of the box and drew the human body the way it appeared to them were given critical praise for their work. If Hitler hadn’t been previously required to follow certain techniques in drawing the human body, he might have been able to portray it as well. Instead, the labeling of degenerate art helped to reinforce traditional art and the techniques required to accomplish it.
- As George Mosse stated, “Beauty with sensuality presented a danger to society because of what it symbolize, namely a revolt against respectability as a principle of unity and order” (Mosse, p. 1). This argument mainly means that modern art is a revolt against social order, and it has the ability to act as a catalyst for other social revolts. Mosse is right. Art has the ability to encourage certain social revolts such as the Civil Rights Movement and the Suffrage Movement in the
3. In Chapter 5, “The Mass Media and The Public Sphere,” we learned that current artists can alter their images in order to mold the type of message they want to send. This causes the media to often be slanted towards a particular ideology or political theory. With current technology, art has the ability to be bent into a lie and to influence people into forming beliefs based on that art’s lie. This has caused a great culture war in the
