Hitler, A. "Speech Inaugurating the Great Exhibition of German Art" 3

Introduction

The exhibition of 'Degenerate Art' (Entartete Kunst) took place in Munich in the summer of 1937 and showcased several avant-garde works of art as products of cultural degeneration, 'cultural bolshevism', corruption and madness, that were produced, according to Hitler, by 'fools, liars, or criminals who belong in asylums or prisons'.

The Speech

Central to Hitler's speech that inaugurated the exhibition was the argument that the encroachment of Judaism on the public sphere has severely affected art and culture. This was also demonstrated by the fact that a lot of the artists that were being showcased in the 'Degenerate Art' exhibition had Jewish heritage. He argued that the Jewish presence in the press enabled the invention of art criticism which defied the natural beauty of art and undermined its purpose. He believed that the art criticism being practiced within the field of modern art led to a standardisation of art with the purpose of creating an 'international communal experience' which went against Hitler's own understanding of art. He criticised the refashioning of art into movements such as futurism, cubism, and dadaism, because they emphasised a material character stripped off of any ethnic roots. His call for a 'German art' was a call for everlasting art that goes beyond time and is representative of the German people: "for art is not founded on time, but only on peoples." The main message of his speech was to announce the beginning of a purge of everything that threatened the 'pure' German character and that did not represent the people. His belief was that art should be purely representational of its people, not of a time or place, but of an ethnic group whose character is immovable and permanent.

Hitler's views were not new, at least not in Germany. They echoed a far older mindset that gained popularity in the 19th century. The German philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder (1744-1803) believed that trying to construct a universal human culture divorced from time and space was an impossible task. During a time in which thinkers were preoccupied with trying to understand human mind and culture, Herder came up with a new concept of culture that is known as an anthropological view of culture. He believed that culture was influenced firstly by the time it finds itself in - each epoch has its own mentality, way of thinking and of acting. Secondly, culture is heavily influenced by the material conditions under which people live, such as climate and geographical environment. These conditions vary from one country to another and they influence a people in such a significant way that it leads to a distinct national character. Although time passes and with it ways of thinking might change, the national character is a stable and permanent foundation. Many thinkers of the 19th century agreed with Herder's view that culture springs out of a stable national character, and that a person born within a nation bears the national character of its country as a foundation of his or her identity. This view was widespread in Europe and it did not fail to reach Norway, which, at the time, was a province of Denmark.

Nordic Art

Johan Christian Clausen Dahl, a pioneer of the Norwegian National Romanticism, started working in the museums of Copenhagen where he was first exposed to the paintings of Allaert van Everdingen (1621-1675) and Jacob van Ruysdael (1629-1682). The works of these artists were known for their 'Norwegian character' ('Norsk Karracteer') because of the landscapes they represented. Dahl started copying these works, although they were mostly fantasy landscapes due to Dahl's limited knowledge of Norwegian nature. As his work developed, Dahl tried to interpret the landscapes through a national lens, encouraging the viewer to appreciate the value of the landscape and the sublime in the nature. Secondly, he also explored what was typically Norwegian in these landscapes, what were the commonalities and to what extent the Norwegian landscape influenced the Norwegian character.

Literature

Danbolt, Gunnar. Norsk Kunsthistorie : Bilde og skulptur frå vikingtida til i dag. Oslo: Samlaget, 2009.

Harrison, Charles, and Paul Wood. Art in Theory : 1900-1990 : An Anthology of Changing Ideas. Oxford: Blackwell, 1992.