The online etymology dictionary indicates that degenerate as an adjective is latin in origin (degnerare) and means "to depart from one's kind, fall from ancestral quality." For Adolf Hitler, degenerate art was that which moved away from the pastoral, realistic or traditional European styles he'd been trained in. It was any piece not like his own. Degenerate art was an abstract product of Gypsies, Jews, Bolsheviks and other non-Aryans who had to be exterminated. It never occurred to him, it seems, that artistic repression instinctively breeds some form of resistance because he had a simplistic view that out of sight meant out of mind.
When that didn't work, public humiliation in the form of an art exhibition seemed a plausible next step. The placement of art and the derogatory statements that surrounded them were just as disrespectful as chiseling someone out of a hieroglyphic story or tagging (spray painting or writing over) over the art of another muralist. It's as though Hitler was taking out the frustrations he felt (as a stifled artist) and trying to find a scapegoat for his problems. So, ironically, he began to push the very ideas that seem opposite of what it means to be artist - conformity, uniformity, creating art without abstraction/deviation/imagination, creating art void of the interpersonal and intrapersonal.
Overall, I was left with these questions:
- What does society look like when everyone is the same? When there is no invention, originality? (refer to The Giver, Pleasantville, Harrison Bergeron)
- By censoring the art didn't this serve as a way to affirm its relevance and validity in society?
- Who defines what art is? Who determines what's degenerate or not?
- Who were the real degenerates?
- What did the world outside of Nazi regime think of these artists?
- Was this really a personal vendetta Hitler had against Jewish artists?
- What kind of man would Hitler have been had his own art/artistic career flourished? What does this say about the importance of art education and art as therapy?
- Would the German audiences have thought this art was degenerate if the derogatory labeling hadn't been done?
- Just because you may not like a piece of art or a certain style, does that mean that it can't be defined as art?
- Were the Nazis more disturbed by the art or the artists?
LOOKING AT THE VALUE OF ART
In Eric Jensen's Arts with the Brain in Mind, there are some fundamental statements made regarding the role of the arts, brain development and community dynamics that came to mind when I viewed "Degenerate Art:"
- art can be a tool to connect individuals of various ethnic, social and economic backgrounds
- art is an outlet for emotions/feelings and is a product of thinking
- art is a language or communication tool
- art is archival and can serve as an educational tool that promotes the best (and the worst) of a people
- art is an motivator and can be used to foster engagement (ritual or authentic)
- early art served to foster family and community relationships, honor ancestors, communicate traditions or rituals and was used to strengthen individual or collective identity
When I consider these ideas and what was presented in the film, it seems clear that the Nazi regime, Hitler in particular, was fully aware of the power of art as a communication tool, as an outlet and as a way of preserving culture and heritage. As an artist himself, Hitler was cognizant of the multiple ways in which Jewish art could be used to persuade Aryan peoples away from the ideals of the Party. By crushing the movement and stifling the artists, he halted the rise of sympathetic sentiment and comraderie that non-Jewish artists may have felt for their colleagues. Those in the film that didn't agree with the Party line either went along with the program or left Germany. They were afraid to speak out or to use their public art as a means of speaking out. Feeling stifled, some killed themselves. This intrigued me because when you cut off a person's means of communicating, it's like they are dead. The Egyptians knew this and therefore, erased people from glyphs to ruin their chances of immortality. Langston Hughes' referred to artistic censorship in two of his poems - "A Dream Deferred" and "Genius Child" (my all-time favorite poem :-). In the former, he warns that stifling an artist or "a dream" only means that there is build-up to an explosion of some kind - a revolution, a renaissance,etc. In the latter he writes,
This is a song for the genius child. Sing it softly, for the song is wild.
Sing it softly as ever you can - Lest the song get out of hand.
Nobody loves a genius child. Can you love an eagle, Tame or wild?
Can you love an eagle, Wild or tame? Can you love a monster Of frightening name?
Nobody loves a genius child.
Kill him - and let his soul run wild.
The souls of all the Jewish artists that were stifled or that took their own lives are now immortal. Hitler's attempts to remove them from history was in vain because like any censored artform, it was sustained in the underground through the curiosity of the masses. This is how it has always happened - with the blues, with jazz, with rock & roll, with rap, with most forms of modern visual art. It's the responsibility of the people to be the receivers of the gifts that artists have to give - theirs is an ethereal blessing and burden that needs to be transmitted. Ars longa, vita breve. Who are we to stifle, question or get in the way of that?
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