From Modern Art to Degenerate Art
In
1937, Germany's National Socialist government seized over 16,000
modernist artworks by over 1,400 artists from German public museums and
displayed over 650 of them in the Entartete Kunst, or Degenerate Art
exhibition. Degenerate Art, an exhibition mounted to defame the very
art it displayed, was a pivotal event in the Nazi backlash against the
arts and cultural life of the late Wilhelmine Empire and the Weimar
Republic.
On the eve of opening the Degenerate
Art exhibition, Adolf Hitler announced in a radio speech that Nazi
art's function was precisely the opposite of modernist art's: to
reject, reverse, and erase all signs of modernity and its social impact
on Germany.
This study guide emphasizes not
only historical context but also historical interpretation through
study of the art itself. To that end, the guide helps students and
teachers alike to develop the skills of looking at, describing, and
discussing works of art, and then of linking visual analysis to
artists' philosophies and to broader social, cultural, and political
factors.
