Art Criticism - The State University of New York

cultural policy. The exhibition opening was celebrated as a national holiday,
German Art Day.27 Hitler gave a speech on the contrast between modem ideals
and German ideals with such passion that even his entourage were taken
aback. He forbade artists to use anything but the forms seen in nature in their
paintings. "We will, from now on, lead an unrelenting war of purification, an
unrelenting war of extermination, against the elements which have displaced
our art."28 It was with these words that the audience made their way into the
museum for the first time.
The 600 works that had been chosen for the opening were organized
into categories such as landscape, portraiture, nudes, and heroic military themes,
with many works also focusing on German folk themes of family, peasant life,
and motherhood. So-called art editors, having replaced art critics, reported in
the press that "Sketchiness has been rigorously eliminated" and that the only
paintings accepted were those "that are fully executed examples of their kind,
and give no cause to ask what the artist might have meant to convey."29
The exhibition was straightforward, accessible to the point that it had
clear messages without any room for interpretation. Such a message was conveyed
by the many depictions of the well toned and forward looking Nordic
nude, that, according to one report, "emanates delight in the healthy human
body."30 These pieces were instructional, embodying proper morality and behavior
by symbolizing a standard of beauty and utilizing a classical vocabulary
to avoid seeming sexual. They offered a moral standard around which Hitler
hoped to unite a nation. This morality was represented in the bodies of the
larger than life nudes that were smooth, and frozen so that they could be
worshipped but not desired, like the Greece formY In this way, beauty helped
one maintain control of one's passions. And by depicting the nude in a static
state like that of the Greek form, the works expressed unchanging values to
those in search of values in post-war, modern Germany. The great statutes
represented a link to Greco-Roman antiquity, echoing the tradition set forth by
Rosenberg, a tradition of which the German people, hungry for national pride,
could be proud. 32 The works suggested the greatness of those in the empire,
while towering over the individual viewer, making him feel small and powerless
against the empire."
However, while the hushed whispers of the crowd generally admired
the works for their realistic depiction of what was good and beautiful, the
exhibition drew relatively low attendance, while the Degenerate Art exhibition
drew record breaking crowds. Part of this may have been the aura of iIIicitness
that the exhibition had. 34 No children were allowed and often times the doors
had to be closed to prevent overcrowding. Arid by drawing on the average
German's distrust of the avant-garde, the exhibition gave the people what they
wanted, an enemy to voice a unified hatred towards. The fact that the avantgarde
was continually equated with Judeo-Bolshevik ideas and that the Gervol.
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