Herr Hitler, the Nazi party and stolen art

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**Wolfstan**

I don't know if anybody has seen the article on the artwork stolen by the Nazi's that have been recovered recently, but the BBC news site quoted something Heer Hitler said about it:

"works of art which cannot be understood in themselves but need some pretentious instruction book to justify their existence will never again find their way to the German people".

We all know what an evil bastich he was, but if you ignore that he said it, does the statement have value concerning modern art? I have to say that I think he has a point with regards to modern art. I wouldn't call it degenerate by any means, but I do think it's pointless and there is an elitism connected to it. If you do say that it's rubbish or that "a child could of done better" you are looked down upon as some sort of ignorant plebe.

Over the years I have seen thousands of pieces of artwork, created using different mediums, and all of the ones that I've liked have been immediately recognisable in what they are. I look at a piece of work done by Hirst or Emin and go "wtf?!" I then see the price tag for such pieces of work or see the price paid for paintings such as "The Scream" or "Sunflowrs" and just wonder how come some people can be so gullible to pay such a figure.

So then, Modern Art, is there a valid point to it?

**fishy bob**

That statement almost makes up for the other things he did

No, but I do share his opinion on that point.

**Senden**

Against my own prejudices, I will say that yes; there is a point to modern art

Its just that the point has become laboured

Pithy comments aside, like all things the Cultural and Monetary value of art are very distinct things. Cultural value is derived from the magnitude of the recognition and meaning that are placed upon it. Monetary value represents how much you can get someone to pay for it.

**KingCracker**

Completely agree. Some art just makes me scratch my head and ask "so.....why?" Like that giant painting that is all white, but it has a black horizontal stripe going across the center. What the feth is the point of that? Its a stripe.....and? I mean if someone wants to pay me a few grand to put some black duct tape across something and call it art Ill gladly accept it

**Medium of Death**

The thing is these people actually produced what most people would still call works of art, painting and sculpture. Comparing all the pieces to a couple of controversial works done Emin & Hirst is a bit disingenuous and simplifies what was going on at the time. Just because some people might not understand it doesn't mean that it has less right to exist or that it isn't "art" somehow. I don't have an art degree and couldn't tell you what defines art, but surely from the point of view of allowing people to express themselves freely is a good enough reason to allow things like this to exist.

You guys sound like you're only a few steps behind burning books...

Here's the article from the BBC.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24819441

This week it was revealed that a huge stash of modern art had been found in a flat in Munich. Many of the paintings were considered "degenerate" by the Nazis, who staged an exhibition especially to ridicule them. Why did Hitler hate abstract art so much?

In July 1937, four years after it came to power, the Nazi party put on two art exhibitions in Munich.

The Great German Art Exhibition was designed to show works that Hitler approved of - depicting statuesque blonde nudes along with idealised soldiers and landscapes.

The second exhibition, just down the road, showed the other side of German art - modern, abstract, non-representational - or as the Nazis saw it, "degenerate".

The Degenerate Art Exhibition included works by some of the great international names - Paul Klee, Oskar Kokoschka and Wassily Kandinsky - along with famous German artists of the time such Max Beckmann, Emil Nolde and Georg Grosz.

The exhibition handbook explained that the aim of the show was to "reveal the philosophical, political, racial and moral goals and intentions behind this movement, and the driving forces of corruption which follow them".

Works were included "if they were abstract or expressionistic, but also in certain cases if the work was by a Jewish artist," says Jonathan Petropoulos, professor of European History at Claremont McKenna College and author of several books on art and politics in the Third Reich.

He says the exhibition was laid out with the deliberate intention of encouraging a negative reaction. "The pictures were hung askew, there was graffiti on the walls, which insulted the art and the artists, and made claims that made this art seem outlandish, ridiculous."

British artist Robert Medley went to see the show. "It was enormously crowded and all the pictures hung like some kind of provincial auction room where the things had been simply slapped up on the wall regardless to create the effect that this was worthless stuff," he says.

Hitler had been an artist before he was a politician - but the realistic paintings of buildings and landscapes that he preferred had been dismissed by the art establishment in favour of abstract and modern styles.

So the Degenerate Art Exhibition was his moment to get his revenge. He had made a speech about it that summer, saying "works of art which cannot be understood in themselves but need some pretentious instruction book to justify their existence will never again find their way to the German people".

Continue reading the main story
Artists featured in the exhibition

The Nazis claimed that degenerate art was the product of Jews and Bolsheviks, although only six of the 112 artists featured in the exhibition were actually Jewish.

The art was divided into different rooms by category - art that was blasphemous, art by Jewish or communist artists, art that criticised German soldiers, art that offended the honour of German women.

One room featured entirely abstract paintings, and was labelled "the insanity room".

"In the paintings and drawings of this chamber of horrors there is no telling what was in the sick brains of those who wielded the brush or the pencil," reads the entry in the exhibition handbook.

The idea of the exhibition was not just to mock modern art, but to encourage the viewers to see it as a symptom of an evil plot against the German people.

The curators went to some lengths to get the message across, hiring actors to mingle with the crowds and criticise the exhibits.

The Degenerate Art Exhibition in Munich attracted more than a million visitors - three times more than the officially sanctioned Great German Art Exhibition.

Some realised it could be their last chance to see this kind of art in Germany, while others endorsed Hitler's views. Many people also came because of the air of scandal around the show - and it wasn't just Nazi sympathisers who found the art off-putting.

Fritz Lustig was a young Jewish apprentice who went along to see the works of art. He says "they didn't seem to mean very much - if they were portraits they seemed to distort the faces... if they were things, they seemed to be quite different from what the things really looked like - I mean the word degenerate seemed to me to apply".

The exhibition went on tour all over Germany, where it was seen by a million more people.

Some of the art was later burned by the Nazis, and for many of the artists this was only the beginning of very hard times ahead.

But Petropoulos says that for some, being banned by the Nazis turned out to have a positive side.

"This artwork became more attractive abroad, or certainly in anti-Nazi circles it gained values because the Nazis opposed it, and I think that over the longer run it was good for modern art to be viewed as something that the Nazis detested and hated."

Some of the artists featured in the exhibition are now considered among the greats of modern art.

Lustig, who later fled the Nazis to settle in England, now enjoys the art that he once thought was degenerate.

"Well, I have grown up since that - I was pretty young and I hadn't seen all that much art - I've changed my mind since then," he says.

"I can appreciate modern art much better now than I did then. It's not meant to be beautiful is it?"

**MrMoustaffa**

Any more info on how the artwork was found? All I can imagine is a guy accidentally leaning against a bust revealing a secret room with dozens of paintings stashed inside.

**Medium of Death**

Found in an investigation connected with Tax evasion.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-24794970

Nazi looted art 'found in Munich' - German media

Art historian Godfrey Barker spoke to the BBC about the significance of this discovery

A collection of 1,500 artworks confiscated by the Nazis in the 1930s and 1940s has been found in the German city of Munich, media reports say.

The trove is believed to include works by Matisse, Picasso and Chagall, the news magazine Focus reports.

Some of the works were declared as degenerate by the Nazis, while others were stolen from or forcibly sold for a pittance by Jewish art collectors.

If confirmed, it would be one of the largest recoveries of looted art.

Investigators put the value of the works at about one billion euros (£846m; $1.35bn), Focus said.

Tax investigation
The magazine said the artworks were found by chance in early 2011, when the tax authorities investigated Cornelius Gurlitt, the reclusive son of an art dealer in Munich.

He was suspected of tax evasion, and investigators obtained a search warrant for his home in Munich.

Replica of Picasso's Guernica in the town of the same name (file pic 2007)
The Nazis detested Picasso, whose artwork Guernica depicted a German bombing during the Spanish Civil War
There, they found the cache of some 1,500 artworks which had vanished from sight during the Nazi era.

The younger Mr Gurlitt had kept the works in darkened rooms and sold the occasional painting when he needed money, Focus reports.

The Nazis categorised almost all modern art as "degenerate". It was banned for being un-German or for being the work of Jewish artists.

Some works were confiscated or destroyed; others were sold to collectors for a low price.

There are international warrants out for at least 200 of the works, Focus reports. The collection is being held in a secure warehouse in Munich for the time being.

One of the pieces is said to be a portrait of a woman by Matisse which belonged to the grandfather of French TV presenter Anne Sinclair.

Paul Rosenberg, an art dealer who represented Picasso as well as Matisse, was forced to leave his collection behind when he fled France in 1940.

The US Holocaust Memorial Museum estimates the Nazis seized about 16,000 works of art in all.

Correction 4 November 2013: We initially reported that Paul Rosenberg had fled Germany in the 1930s, which was incorrect - he fled France in 1940.

**d-usa**

Some art is more about the thoughts and experiences of the artist as he is creating these pieces, as well as the thoughts and feelings of those that view it.

One of the interesting experiences for me has been the ability to listen to people tell me how they interpret my photography. There are plenty of people that don't see any deeper meaning in my pictures other than "oh, kinda pretty" and others see emotions and feelings that I never expected when I took the photographs.

Now that doesn't mean that I don't look at many of the pieces at an art show and go "nope, I don't get it".

I am also 50/50 on the whole "if you have to explain it then it isn't art" statement that I sometimes hear. I do think that you should be able to look at a piece of art by itself and be able to interpret it (even if it is just "black stripe on white background...whatever). But I also find it helpful to read artist statements and learn more about the artist, which sometimes causes me to approach a piece of art differently and interpret it differently as well.

**Talizvar**

Yes, we all had those moments looking at some "art" and think that someone is making it more than it really is.

It is publicly funded and supported art that is cranked out looking like a "minimal effort" rather than a minimalist that makes the blood boil.
I like my burger as much as the next guy but seeing amazing works of art and then this thing in a prime exhibit area just begs the question "why?".
I saw this beast in the Ontario Art Gallery.

Spoiler:

Forgive me for being unable to find the various works of art in same gallery of shrink wrapped chair mounted on wall...

There still needs to be some hedge for the "experts" to identify progressive art because many master works we see now were considered garbage at the time they were made, they just had the poor taste of being ahead of their time.

What was demonstrated in the Heer Hitler quote is someone wanting to make the decision for you on what is "good" or "bad" you get to see.
Art is usually quoted to show or spark ideas or a feeling and that is a personal thing and not to be trusted to others lightly.
I still have trouble only trusting Google to find everything I want so multiple sources is always a good way to go.
If you control the information, you control the people and various other paranoid quotes...

Our picture scoring system may be a good way to go: Giant Canvas Hamburger: Coolness: 2 Paintjob: 2 then add "Emotion Generated:" 1 = meh.

**RossDas**

The worst example of modern art I've ever heard was a tent pitched in an art gallery; it was helpfully titled 'The Tent'. It begs the question: if anything can be viewed as 'art' then what do we need modern artists for?

**d-usa**

RossDas wrote:
The worst example of modern art I've ever heard was a tent pitched in an art gallery; it was helpfully titled 'The Tent'. It begs the question: if anything can be viewed as 'art' then what do we need modern artists for?

To actually have the idea of putting up a tent in an art gallery.

**RossDas**

d-usa wrote:
RossDas wrote:
The worst example of modern art I've ever heard was a tent pitched in an art gallery; it was helpfully titled 'The Tent'. It begs the question: if anything can be viewed as 'art' then what do we need modern artists for?

To actually have the idea of putting up a tent in an art gallery.

The gallery also seems to be superfluous... unless of course having just the right level of ambient lighting is essential in order to better appreciate The Tent!

**d-usa**

RossDas wrote:
d-usa wrote:
RossDas wrote:
The worst example of modern art I've ever heard was a tent pitched in an art gallery; it was helpfully titled 'The Tent'. It begs the question: if anything can be viewed as 'art' then what do we need modern artists for?

To actually have the idea of putting up a tent in an art gallery.

The gallery also seems to be superfluous... unless of course having just the right level of ambient lighting is essential in order to better appreciate The Tent!

That's why you need curators, to pick the artist and the tent and then decide how to light it!

**Wyrmalla**

That was essentially the response I received back when I questioned my Art teacher about how such pieces of drivel are famous. Its that they're different, and the person can publicize themselves enough to make a point. In my interpretation its like reading a book and being told something like, "the sky was very blue today". People may take that as "ooh then I guess that means the character for feeling melancholy, the author must have put a lot of effort into that", whilst others think "the sky's blue, big deal...", people see something and interpret it to be art, whether it is, or is stated to be or not.

But in this particular case Hitler had a rather narrow range of pieces he liked, and, in a typically conservative manner, decided that everything outside this wasn't acceptable of being categorised alongside it.

**MrMoustaffa**

d-usa wrote:
RossDas wrote:
d-usa wrote:
RossDas wrote:
The worst example of modern art I've ever heard was a tent pitched in an art gallery; it was helpfully titled 'The Tent'. It begs the question: if anything can be viewed as 'art' then what do we need modern artists for?

To actually have the idea of putting up a tent in an art gallery.

The gallery also seems to be superfluous... unless of course having just the right level of ambient lighting is essential in order to better appreciate The Tent!

That's why you need curators, to pick the artist and the tent and then decide how to light it!

You fools! The answer is right in front of your faces! The art gallery ITSELF is the art piece! It demonstrates the variety of the human spirit, the struggle to be noticed and stand out amongst one's peers, and the agony of watching the slovenly masses belittle your message!

**SilverMK2**

I made the mistake of going into the Tate Modern a few weeks ago. Filled with pointless crap that wasn't even drawn/painted/sculpted well, and most of it apparently about sex if you read the descriptions.

**Wolfstan**

To me it appears that modern art is about self indulgence and getting paid / noticed. It means they can paint / produce what ever they want and have it praised. Take Tracey Emin's famous unmade bed for example, most of us probably saw a bloody messy room, but because we aren't "with it" we didn't get what it actually represented to her. Me? I'm old fashioned I look at a Constable landscape and I can see it's a painting of the English countryside in Summer, Winter, spring etc. I don't need to be told what it represents, especially as the representations of my thoughts mean something to me and likely to be total gibberish to someone else

That aside I certainly wouldn't ban it, I just resent being looked down upon for not getting it and that someone will pay £20 million for it (they have too much money if they can pay silly money for modern art)

**hotsauceman1**

This is why i dropped my art class, to much pretencious.
When I go to the library, I look at the art, it makes no since, yeah i can justify the technical aspect, but the picture next to it is just colured paper on a wall.

**Kovnik Obama**

hotsauceman1 wrote:
This is why i dropped my art class, to much pretencious.
When I go to the library, I look at the art, it makes no since, yeah i can justify the technical aspect, but the picture next to it is just colured paper on a wall.

Not to be pretentious (okay, actually, I don't mind, yeah, I am being pretentious), but your answer is perfectly representative of the point-of-view adopted by many of the illustrious members of this online community, such as Kingcracker and OP here. Being that it is barely literate, and that it assumes that if something isn't directly in your grasp, or relevant to your interest, or requires more than just immediate stimulation to acquire meaning, that must make it meaningless.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

SilverMK2 wrote:
I made the mistake of going into the Tate Modern a few weeks ago. Filled with pointless crap that wasn't even drawn/painted/sculpted well, and most of it apparently about sex if you read the descriptions.

You've got a Klee and a Schendel expo currently going on, and a Matisse coming up. I don't see how anyone could complain about that.

If you are calling Klee pointless crap, we're going to have words.

**hotsauceman1**

Um no. I am looking around my library right now. There are amazing pictures, ones I would not mind, they dont make sense but they look coool.
But when I see a square with 4 squares in it that are different colors and it is selling for 5000$ I think I have a right to call people out.

**Cheesecat**

I actually find a lot of modern art to be quite enjoyable and more memorable than a lot of other types of art.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Art isn't just about technique sometimes the statement is supposed to be it's so obvious or simple yet no one dared to attempt it.

**Wolfstan**

Kovnik Obama wrote:
hotsauceman1 wrote:
This is why i dropped my art class, to much pretencious.
When I go to the library, I look at the art, it makes no since, yeah i can justify the technical aspect, but the picture next to it is just colured paper on a wall.

Not to be pretentious (okay, actually, I don't mind, yeah, I am being pretentious), but your answer is perfectly representative of the point-of-view adopted by many of the illustrious members of this online community, such as Kingcracker and OP here. Being that it is barely literate, and that it assumes that if something isn't directly in your graps, or relevant to your interest, or requires more than just immediate stimulation to acquire meaning, that must make it meaningless.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

SilverMK2 wrote:
I made the mistake of going into the Tate Modern a few weeks ago. Filled with pointless crap that wasn't even drawn/painted/sculpted well, and most of it apparently about sex if you read the descriptions.

You've got a Klee and a Schendel expo currently going on, and a Matisse coming up. I don't see how anyone could complain about that.

If you are calling Klee pointless crap, we're going to have words.

I believe it's you sir that is missing the point. If I showed someone a piece of artwork that I liked, they may not like it. It could be the theme or the style, it won't be because they don't understand it. Whereas if I a modern art fan showed me a modern art picture and turned around and said "what the hell is that supposed to be?" I would looked upon as some sort art idiot.

Quoted below is what Tracey Emin's My Bed was supposed to represent:

The bed was presented in the state that Emin claimed it had been when she said she had not got up from it for several days due to suicidal depression brought on by relationship difficulties.

How on earth would anybody work out what that was? Even now knowing, I still look at it and say WTF?! Okay it was her way of expressing the thoughts in her head at the time, but that's the thing, it's her thoughts, her interpretation of her feelings & state of mind. How on earth are the rest of us supposed to work that out? I bet if you went to a Modern Art forum and questioned the point of that piece of work they'd tear you apart.

**SilverMK2**

Kovnik Obama wrote:
hotsauceman1 wrote:
This is why i dropped my art class, to much pretencious.
When I go to the library, I look at the art, it makes no since, yeah i can justify the technical aspect, but the picture next to it is just colured paper on a wall.

Not to be pretentious (okay, actually, I don't mind, yeah, I am being pretentious), but your answer is perfectly representative of the point-of-view adopted by many of the illustrious members of this online community, such as Kingcracker and OP here. Being that it is barely literate, and that it assumes that if something isn't directly in your graps, or relevant to your interest, or requires more than just immediate stimulation to acquire meaning, that must make it meaningless.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

SilverMK2 wrote:
I made the mistake of going into the Tate Modern a few weeks ago. Filled with pointless crap that wasn't even drawn/painted/sculpted well, and most of it apparently about sex if you read the descriptions.

You've got a Klee and a Schendel expo currently going on, and a Matisse coming up. I don't see how anyone could complain about that.

If you are calling Klee pointless crap, we're going to have words.

I only went into the bits that were free, so if they were in the special exhibits sections you had to pay to see then i did not see them

**Kovnik Obama**

Wolfstan wrote:

I believe it's you sir that is missing the point. If I showed someone a piece of artwork that I liked, they may not like it. It could be the theme or the style, it won't be because they don't understand it.

Why not? Let's say I see a classical representation of the Battle of the Abraham Plains. I (as in me, the person from Montreal) will have a very different appreciation of that representation from someone, let's say, raised on a chinese rice farm. We may both have an identical appreciation of the aesthetics involved, but because I have access to a special point-of-view regarding it's narrative content (that of the loser's side), I will understand it, and will appreciate it differently from someone who cannot have the same point-of-view, or might not even know at all the painting's narrative content.

Whereas if I a modern art fan showed me a modern art picture and turned around and said "what the hell is that supposed to be?" I would looked upon as some sort art idiot.

You'd be looked at as some sort of idiot if you thought you could derive a factually correct understanding of the art piece from simply looking at it.

And you are wrong to assume that you cannot have an aesthetical appreciation of a modern art piece without an understanding of it's creator's process. Because of family, I've been visiting galleries and openings since I was a child. Believe me, artists are just as pleased, if not more, when we answer ''just 'cause I like it'' to the question ''why do you like it''. Maybe, in the end, I just think it's a pretty snazzy black stripe on a white background.

Wolfstan wrote:
Quoted below is what Tracey Emin's My Bed was supposed to represent:

The bed was presented in the state that Emin claimed it had been when she said she had not got up from it for several days due to suicidal depression brought on by relationship difficulties.

How on earth would anybody work out what that was? Even now knowing, I still look at it and say WTF?! Okay it was her way of expressing the thoughts in her head at the time, but that's the thing, it's her thoughts, her interpretation of her feelings & state of mind. How on earth are the rest of us supposed to work that out? I bet if you went to a Modern Art forum and questioned the point of that piece of work they'd tear you apart.

I guess I'd be one of those tearing you apart, because I really don't see the point of that question. We know the meaning of the piece because she gave it to us. If she hadn't, and the piece didn't have any virtues on it's own, then it probably wouldn't have become important. If things don't have artistic values because we can't know their meaning, we'd better start tearing down a hell of a lot of civilisation's artefacts.

**Howard A Treesong**

Perhaps he didn't like that the apparent minimal effort put into some 'modern art' works made people rich while his more traditional works didn't, because they were quite mediocre...

**Ensis Ferrae**

See, I agree to some extent that many modern artists just simply arent... I mean, the guy that Rudy Giuliani denied his piece in an NYC exhibit? (it was ruled as not art because it was simply a mason/bell jar with a crucifix inside it, filled with urine)

The "stripe" painting and things like putting a tent in a gallery mentioned earlier strike me as being not art... however there are guys out there who, agree or disagree are making what is actually art. Such as Kris Kuksi, who is a sculpturist:

Things like that, while many of us may scratch our heads at it's "meaning" (another term that I don't necessarily agree with), I think it's clear to see the amount of time and effort that was put into making the piece. While there is no clear definition of, you must put X amount of hours into a piece for it to be considered art, I think that it should be fairly clear to the casual observer that effort was indeed made.

**Fafnir**

Reminds me of a time back in one of my early art courses where I'd be given a 2-3 week assignment, assemble some random junk within the last half-hour before class, and when it came time to present, just throw together a half-assed explanation combined with more bs thrown in from what the rest of the class tries to infer. Got myself an easy A-.

That said, just because it's abstract or possibly even 'plain' looking doesn't take away its artistic merit. For example, one of my favourite artists is Piet Mondrian.

And keep in mind, it's not through a lack of technical skill that artists produce works like this. Both Mondrian (above) and Picasso happened to be very competent at more traditional styles as well. They chose to develop specific styles for very specific reasons.

**d-usa**

Ensis Ferrae wrote:

Things like that, while many of us may scratch our heads at it's "meaning" (another term that I don't necessarily agree with), I think it's clear to see the amount of time and effort that was put into making the piece. While there is no clear definition of, you must put X amount of hours into a piece for it to be considered art, I think that it should be fairly clear to the casual observer that effort was indeed made.

The amount of effort should have no bearing when people decide "is it art".

Art is simply art if it was created to be art.

**Fafnir**

Besides, what may look like a few strokes on a page could require an uncountable amount of time of planning and adjustment. Just because it looks simple, does not mean that the thought process that went into it was. Just look at the classic 50s-60s era Swiss graphic design. Beautifully simple, but with a considerable amount of knowledge and theory behind it, and a very exact, perfectionist nature.

**d-usa**

Just because: