This essay will be about Fine
art in the early 1930s in particularly Modernism which turned to degenerate art
and how that came about, artists and other people who may be involved with the
movement at the time and what was happening socially and any big names.
In Berlin 1933 the Nazis came into power with Adolf
Hitler as their leader.
Hitler’s involvement with the degenerate art comes from
his own love of art and his desire to want to become an artist himself. Hitler’s
art represented the natural and real world in all its glory but this new and
unrealistic style was not what other artists where creating and Hitler could
not paint in this new style. His dream of becoming a respected and widely known
artist was slowly deteriating. The final blow came when Hitler applied for a
place at the Vienna Academy of art and was rejected twice as his art work
wasn’t good enough.
In the early 1900’s a group of artists were creating art
which went against the norm at the time which went on to create this new art
movement called Modernism these artists were working at the same time as
Hitler. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Oscar Concosar were two of the artists. Kirchner
is now seen as an early modernist hero as he tried to get people to look and
understand the new style that was being created, these efforts where soon
dismist. Kirchner’s art is about the inner world and what lies beneath; he
never painted the natural world.
1914 was the start of World War 1, Adolf Hitler being a
decorated officer during the war arrives at a turning point in which he would put
his plans into motion to rise to power. This was when he could destroy the art
world and get his revenge because his art work wasn’t good enough. Hitler
started attacking books, artists and modernism as he thought it was all against
the Nazis and all the artists were Jewish. He then decided to hold an
exhibition to display all the artists work which was up in Weimar, Germany.
This was to show everyone that this art work was wrong, and to make everyone
feel the same way as Hitler did about the art work. The Nazis tried their best
to make this art work inappropriate, they bunched the art work together, hung
them at different angles and some weren’t framed. Around other pieces of work were
graffiti which added to what Hitler thought inappropriate artwork. This exhibition was seen by about 3 million
people which most of them laughed. This exhibition was seen as the artist’s
funerals as this was the last time this work was to be shown as most of them
were burnt or put away by the Nazis. Some of the artists that work was shown
were Paul Klee, Oskar Kokoschka, Wassily Kandinsky, Max Beckmann, Emil Nolde
and Georg Grosz.
Most artists fled Berlin to carry on their carriers to be
artists and mainly to stay alive as the few that stayed Hitler made sure they
were dead. The word degenerate became a term people used to describe others and
to be used as an insult. Expressionist artists started seeing themselves as the
mentally ill of the art world.
The war left Germany in kayos, Hitler had left his dream
of ever becoming an artists and began a Nation Socialist Party.
Later Hitler ended up going to prison for trying to over
through German democracy and come out in 1924. While he was locked up, in the
early 20s expressionists no longer needed to fear the Nazis. In Berlin the
modern artists flourished and their work was selling, few people cared about
what Hitler thought about the movement. Berlin then became the capital of the
art world.
In the early 1930s the Minister for Culture and Education, von Thüringen
Frick ordered that 70 paintings to be removed from a permanen exhibition
of the scholossmuseum in weimar
Around 1933 Bettina Feistel-Rohmeder who was the director of the
Deutsche Kunstkorrespondenz he told museums to get rid of works that reviled
Bolshevik and cosmopolitan aspects. Around 16,000 pieces of art work were confiscated
from around 100 museums. This was to bring art into line with what the Nazis wanted
art to be which was to illustrate National Socialism and glorify the state.
This movement is about freedom
of art and artists expressing their own thoughts in any way they wanted.
I have briefly spoken about some artists, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner which used to
work with Hitler when he was an artists, I am going to talk about him and 2
other artists, Wassily Kandinsky and Paul Klee.
Kirchner was in a group called Die Brucke which was a
group of influential and talented German Expressionist artists who flourished
in Dresden and Berlin. He is now seen as the most talented artist. Kirchner
admired Albrecht Durer and was inspired by the modern city. He was a victim of
the Nazis campaign to get rid of all the degenerate art. After the war
Kirchners illness drove him to settle in Davos, Switzerland.
Human figure was the central point to his work, sometimes
the human figure its self would stand out more than the city that the figure
was in. He would try and capture the movement of the individual.
The
painting i like most is Self-Portrait as a Soldier (1915) which is what the
title says. Kirchner painted himself as a soldier. He was a soldier in the war
and this impacted him, he no longer wanted to serve so used drugs and alcohol
to get out. War is shown though his paintings, his severed hand which is to
resemble his trauma and loss of his man hood. And in the background is a naked
woman who apparently resembles his lover at the time. I like this because you
can see the paint in the self portrait in the face and how he has made the eyes
so dark like he has no sole left or he no longer wants to see the pain of the
war.
Wassily Kandinsky born December 1866 and is a Russian
painter. He worked in the Bauhaus but when that closed due to the Nazis who
classed it as degenerate Kandinsky moved to France. Kandinsky became a French
citizen in 1939. In 1895 Kandinsky attended an impressionist exhibition and one
piece that he saw and inspired him was Monet’s Haystacks at giverny.
Kandinsky was in a group of people who were all German
Expressionists called Die Blave Vier (Blue Four) which was formed in 1923 and
included Paul Klee, Feininger and Von Jawlensky. It was founded by Kandinsky
and Franz Marc.
Some of Kandinsky’s early works look similar to
impressionists work. Whilst Kandinsky was working in the Bauhaus he painted on
white ll in 1925 which was a cross between surrealism and abstract art. After
Bauhaus Kandinsky carried on painting but most paintings are lost or have been disposed
of as the Nazis confiscated them.
I like how Kandinskys work looks like it is so simple but
will have taken a lot of planning to create and how from a distance you can see
loads of shapes but in some if you look closer you can see there is more to
some piece of work. The one i like most is the bohemian bodgie as I can’t stop
looking around the painting. There’s more to explore and its odd and its quite
playful in a way but also planned.
Paul Klee born in December 1979 is a Swiss German
painter. His style was influenced by different movements in art, some of them
are surrealism, cubism and expressionism. Klee decided to experiment with colour
theory then later on in his paintings he deeply explored this to use it
effectively within his paintings. Paul also worked at the Bauhaus school of
art, design and architecture. In 1931 Klee took over teaching at the Academy of
Dusseldorf but in 1933 he was forced by the Nazis campaign to resign from the
academy. Paul left Germany and moved back home to Switzerland and continued
painting.
Paul uses watercolour, paint and etchers to create work;
etcher is a form of print making. He is known for stick figures, faces and eyes
and lots of colour. Many of his work is
small scale but he did few in large scale.
What I like about Paul's work is that it these are kind of
kid like, some don’t look planned but others do. One of the ones I like is
called comedy 1922 and is and it makes me giggle and it looks like people
dancing or house hold objects joined together to dance. It is quite comical.
Today there are aspects of this in our art world as Bob and Reberta smith and Jasmine Ghafur know. Jasmine is a
Kurdish artists who used to be a teacher before he came to England in 2000.He
has fled from war and conflict to the UK. Jasmine’s work is about displacement
and everything he has come across on his journey. He has created a video to
show everyone what he has seen and what he has been through. It shows all the
murder and kayos back where he used to live. Jasmine explains how he saw up to
14 dead bodies at the end of his street and how his house had been broken into.
The photos are graphic and along with the music the video puts you in to his memories.
The war shaped his existence he said, ever since he was young war surrounded
him and all of his colourful dreams faded to grey. The video is upsetting to
watch as you can see the pain and suffering in the children’s eyes and their
parents, if even shows babies in cots.
Bob and Reberta smith is the
name Patrick Bill is known by and he who is protesting again people saying that
art is holding children back. Bob believed that children need to be creative
and art needs to be in the curriculum. He
has created a manifest in what he believes and what he shall be arguing. He is
a contemporary artist’s and is known for his humorous slogan art which comments
on art, politics and popular culture. Smith works on scrap board and banners
writing his slogans in brightly colour paint for everyone to see. These are put
up in contemporary exhibitions around the world.
Personally I believe in what
Smith is doing here as children do need art. Not every child is the same and if
art were to be taken from the curriculum children would be over worked with Math
and English. Children learn differently and have different interests. Without
art there would be no modern building, no colour to the world other than
natural world.
To start with I wasn’t sure which movement to do or which
time zone to do but I have enjoyed reading more into degenerate art and
Hitler’s involvement with the movement. I do feel it was wrong what Hitler did
but a man of power like that can make anyone do anything. And the artists I
feel couldn’t have done much more as they couldn’t have over powered Hitler.
The movement alone with the art I love it as the artists really
express themselves and what they see. There are no boundaries to them and what
they want to do and that is what I admire art hasn’t got boundaries and no
matter what or who is in the way that shouldn’t stop you from doing what you
love and want to do. People in the 1st world countries have it easy
other than no the government want to get
rid of art but people in 3rd world countries have the
everyday struggle and like Jasmine he still created art and compromised where
he lived for a better life there is always a way to do what you want.
