Andrey Vasilchenkoary realism. Fine art in the third Reich

A. Breker "Apollo and Daphne"

A. Breker "Banner"

J. Torak "Monument to Labor"

A. Breker "Winner"

A. Breker Berlin. New imperial office. "The consignment". 1940.

A. Breaker "Call". 1939.

J. Torak "Partnership". 1937.

In the works of Arno Breaker and Joseph Toraka, it is not difficult to see the plastic forms of antiquity, and its exceptional realistic, absolutely subject and symbolically reflective world as it is. That is why National Socialist Realism repeats the antique realism in its form, differing from it only the built-in in this realistic form of powerful and beautiful bodies, the "eternal ideas of national socialism, which should have been reported to the consciousness of the masses.

No mee brightly formed the image of the "Aryans" and the painting of the Third Reich, who sneaks the bodily beauty, health and strength of a person. In the perfect body, the visual art of National Socialism embodies the idea of \u200b\u200b"blood" (nation). "Blood" in the ideology of national socialism was directly related to the "soil" (Earth). In this case, it was about the symbiosis of the people and the Earth, as well as their material and mystical communications. In general, the idea of \u200b\u200b"blood and soil" was addressed to the pagan symbols of fertility, strength, harmony, upgrim, expressing in human beauty itself.

R. Hayman "Fertility". 1943.

A. Yanesh "Water Sport". 1936.

E. Toberber "Tides and Floods." 1939.

E. Liebermann "On the beach" (at the water). 1941.

F. Kale. "Attractiles". 1936.

R. Klein "Swimmer". 1943.

F. Kale "Running". 1936.

I. Zaliger "Court of Paris". 1939.

Not to a lesser extent, the National Socialist painting has revealed and the idea of \u200b\u200b"soil". The beauty of the German land, personified his homeland, as every individual German, and the German nation as a whole, was perfectly displayed on the canvas of landscape players. Drew Germany and Adolf Hitler, giving preference to landscapes and architecture.

A. Hitler "Mountain Lake". 1910.

A. Hitler "Village by the River". 1910.

A. Hitler "Peasant House at the Bridge". 1910.

A. Hitler "Church". 1911.

The realism of the "soil" of the future Fuhrera, in the visual art of the Third Reich will become the dominant. Any kind of modernism, with its often subjective refraction of real, artistically distorting a mirror reflection of reality, in the formation of the image of the Motherland was for National Socialism to be unacceptable. Just as it was unacceptable in the life of the German society of mentally ill people, with their subjective refraction of human normality, contrary to the aesthetic standard "Aryans". Both the first and second - mercilessly destroyed.

Here, as I explained in 1933, the critic of the history of art and literature Kurt Karl Eberlaine, the meaning of "soil" in German Fine Arts: " In the soul of the artist there is a certain landscape, which is formed as a result of observation and acquires the soul. German art is tied to his native land and carries it in his soul, which manifests itself in the image of paintings, animals, colors and things even in conditions of an alien situation. If the artist speaks German, then his soul says in German, but if he speaks in a foreign language and Esperanto, it becomes a cosmopolitan and his soul nothing says. Native Earth is a house that German loves, his rooms and a mirror reflection of the existence. The idea of \u200b\u200bthe house of German is always present, wherever he is and whatever experienced».

V. Pener "Rodina". 1938.

Yu.P. Junghan. Rest under wings. 1938.

K.A. Flyugel "Vintage". 1938.

No less important in painting of the Third Reich was given to chanting physical labor. And this is not by chance, since the ideology of national socialism considered labor as one of the most important forms of consolidation of the nation and the method of manifestation of its vital energy and spirit in the material world.

Special attention paid to the Nazi party to the German peasantry. In the peasant National Socialism, I saw the main, primary keeper of Germanic traditions, capable of protecting them in the face of the urbanized, atomized, lost the national appearance and moral foundations, cities. Idealized ideologies about peasant life in Nazi ideology played the role of a certain model of the German folk community - the main foundation of the German nation and the state. Propaganda of the Third Reich represented rural society as a "cradle of the German race and German blood." Hitler himself was clearly recorded on the idea of \u200b\u200b"living space" with his agricultural romance, anti-libanism and a peasant-war, constantly expanding this living space with a sword and a plow.

That is why after coming to power, the Nazi party began to carry out its agrarian program in a full scale, which no other sector of the economy knew, and the art of the Third Reich - to sing the German peasant and his work.

A.Vissel "Family of the Kallenberg peasant". 1939.

L. Schmitler "Rustic girls returning from the fields"

M. Bergman "Difficult Plowing on a dusty field." 1939.

G. Gunter "Rest while harvesting"

Z. Hilts Central part of the triptych "Bavarian trilogy". 1941.

Considerable significance of National Socialist Art paid the topic of families, women and motherhood. In the Third Reich, this value triad was merged into a single whole, where the woman was exclusively by the continuing of the family, the carrier of family virtues and the keeper of the homely hearth. As Hitler said: " German women want to be wives and mothers, they do not want to be comrades, as they call on red. Women have no desire to work at factories, to the Bureau, in Parliament. Good home, beloved husband and happy kids closer to her heart».

For proclaimed national socialism, conservative family values \u200b\u200bwere also purely practical tasks. Germany were needed soldiers and workers. Many soldiers and workers. The continuously increasing mass of the German nation was necessary for holding an external expansionist policy aimed at the gradual expansion of the "living space". In this issue, Hitler was extremely frank: " our female program comes down to one word - children" In Nuremberg, in September 1934, he concretized his thought on the party congress: " the world of a man is a state, the world of a man is his struggle, readiness for the action for the community, then maybe it would be possible to say that the world of a woman is a smaller world. After all, her world is her husband, her family, her children and her house. But where would the big world be, if it were not small? The big world is built on Malom: A man shows courage on the battlefield, a woman self-deducts in dedication, in suffering and in work. Every child she gives birth to the light - this is her battle, won the battle for the existence of his people».

Considering this task, the National Socialist Fine Arts formed the image of a chief exclusively as mother and keeper of a family hearth, depicting it with children, in a family of a family household.

K. Dibic "Mother"

R. Heymann "Growing Family." 1942.

F. Manetsen "Feeding a child"

The topic of political struggle, victory and triumph also occupied great importance in National Socialist Art. Moreover, it should be noted that the German painting, which displaced the stages of the formation of the National Socialist Movement, paid attention to how to leaders and walking for them, so a separate German who put the shape of the attack aircraft and to the street to turn his worldview into reality. In this sense, the painting of National Socialism was not painting devoted to exclusively leaders and mass (as it was accepted now to write). She was also addressed to a simple person, a private German, actively defending his ideas and values \u200b\u200bin the ranks of assault detachments or NSDAP. At the same time, the national-socialist painting clearly demonstrated the power of not a separate, lonely hero (the plot of which naturally inherent in the culture and art of societies with a strong individualistic orientation), and the hero coming to Megazeli along with the same heroes as he.
P. Hermann "Procession on November 9 in Munich". 1941.

P. Hermann "And yet we won." 1942.

And finally, another extensive layer of national-socialist visual art was devoted to war. Perhaps, this themed direction in the painting of the Third Reich was the most natural and spiritualized, as it was not born in the framework of imperial cultural programs, but on the battlefields, in the blood, smoke, dust, under the watchful approach of death. Judging by the surviving paintings, sketches and drawings, the theme of the war was made to authors most easily, it can be said that she was written in one breath, becoming a human nature reaction to death and chaos of six endless military years.

The German military topics is more individual and less pompous than everything else in the pictorial art of the Third Reich. There is more humanity in it and there is practically no official ideology, except for the ideology of the feat the topic, resilience, self-sacrifice, friendship, male military fraternity. In the paintings and figures depicting the war, there are practically no large-scale battle scenes of collision in the mortal fighting of huge human masses. They have no grandmother and pathos. Military topics in National Socialist Fine Arts are portraits of soldiers and officers, as well as drawings of small groups of people whose bodies are woven in the expressive dynamics of the overall struggle.

V. Vilrich "Walter Shojnenn"

R. Rudolf "Comrades". 1943.

It is surprising that the National Socialist Art originated and formed for an amazing short time - 12 years, six of which Germany led War. And this is despite that not all German art figures perceived the national-socialist aesthetic paradigm, leaving towards her silent opposition.

Nevertheless, Hitler managed to achieve the goals in the field of art for such a slight period of time and create a special national socialist aesthetics, the captivated consciousness of millions of people. And most importantly, the enemies of the Third Reich oppose it was nothing. That is why when the allies army entered the German territory, total bombings were supplemented with no less total destruction of all that, one way or another, was associated with the aesthetics of national socialism. Everything was bullied and exploded, everything was created in the field of culture for twelve years of the existence of the Third Reich. But even such radical methods could not eliminate massive interest in the national-socialist aesthetic heritage, the internal energy of which still continues to endure the souls of people.

Andrei Vajra
especially for regular readers andreyvadjra.livejournal.com/

As you know, one of the bloodthirsty tyranans of the XX century Adolf Hitler loved art (he even wanted to become an artist in his youth). Therefore, there is nothing surprising that coming to power the Nazis even developed a special concept that had to raise a new nation in the spirit of national socialism.

The stem of social policy and art in the third Reich was the ideology of "blood and soil", which considered the relationship of national origin ("blood") and native land, giving nation of food ("soil"). Everything else was found to be kden generous art.

To display a formal view of the visual arts within the framework of Nazi cultural policy in Munich even built a house of German art, where in the period from 1937 and to 1944 there were large German art exhibitions, which annually attended about 600 thousand spectators.

Speaking at the opening of the first large German art exhibition in 1937, Adolf Hitler betrayed Anathema Avant-garde art, which was developed in Germany before coming to the authorities of the Nazis, and set the task of "serve the people" to German artists, going with him "along the path of socialism "

Artists who performed this social order, following the ideology of "blood and soil", created numerous works, praising the diligence and adjacent German peasant, the bravery of the Aryan soldier and the fecundity of the German woman, a devotee and family.

Hans Schmitz-Videnbruck

One people are one nation.

People in the fight.

Peasants in a thunderstorm.

Family photo.

Arthur Kampf.

One of the most famous official artists of the Third Reich was Arthur Kampf (September 26, 1864 - February 8, 1950). He even entered the list "GottBegnadeten-Liste" ("List of talents from God") as one of the four most prominent modern German artists. The list was compiled by the Imperial Ministry of Folk Enlightenment and Propaganda under the personal leadership of Adolf Hitler.

In addition, the artist was awarded the "Order of the Eagle with the Shield" - the highest award of figures of science, culture and arts during the time of the Weimara Republic and the Third Reich.

Fighting light and darkness.

In the rolling shop.

Steellars.

Adolf Ziegler

Adolf Tsigler (October 16, 1892 - September 18, 1959) was not only a well-known artist, but also a prominent leader of the Third Reich. He served as President of the Imperial Chamber of Fine Arts from 1936 to 1945 and actively opposed modernist art, which called the "Roda of International Jewry."

It was Tsigler who was engaged in the "purification" of German museums and art galleries from "degenerative art." Thanks to his "efforts" from museums, many cloths of famous and talented artists were removed, among which were the work of Picasso, Gauguen, Matisse, Cezanne and Van Gogh. In other matters, the masterpieces of "degenerative art" were not disappeared: the Nazis cheerfully traded the loose paintings, moving them through dealers abroad, where the modernists were in price.

In 1943, the Adolf Cygler occurred courier. He was suspended by the SS in the affected sentiments and on August 13, sent to the concentration camp Dahau, from where only on September 15 he rescued Adolf Hitler, not aware of this action.

After World War II, Adolf Tsigler was excluded from the Munich Academy of Arts, where he was in the post of professor. The residue of life, the artist spent in the village Farnhalt near Baden-Baden.

Peasant woman with fruit baskets.

Two boys with a sailboat.

Paul Matias Padua

Paul Matias Padua (November 15, 1903 - August 22, 1981) was a German self-taught artist who were born in a very poor family. Perhaps therefore, he followed the instructions from above, preferring to draw in the style of heroic realism of "blood and soil".

In the third Reich Padua was considered a fashionable artist and often painted portraits to order. Among his works - a portrait of the Austrian composer Franz Lehrara, the author of the music to the operetta "Fun Widow", the laureate of the Nobel Prize in literature for 1912 writer Gerhart Hauptman and Cerizer Clemens Krausa, one of the most prominent performers of Music Richard Straus.

Pattern Paul Matias Padua "Leda with Swan" was bought by Adolf Hitler for his residence in Berghof.

After the War Paul Padua, as the "court artist" of the Third Reich, was excluded from the German Union of Art Workers, however, he retained popularity and in post-war Germany earned numerous orders for large politicians, business executives and cultural workers.

Says Führer.

On holiday.

Portrait of Klemens Cleason.

Portrait of Mussolini.

Zepp Hildz

Zepp Hildz (October 22, 1906 - September 30, 1967) was one of the favorite artists of the party top of the Third Reich. His "rural" work, showing the life and labor of the German peasant, from the point of view of the Nazi morality reflected the National Spirit of the Germanic People.

Haltz's work willingly bought the leaders of the Third Reich. In 1938, for 10 thousand Reichsmarocks, the picture "After work" was acquired by Hitler, and in 1942 he also acquired a picture "Red Necklace" for 5 thousand.

The most famous work of the artist, represented by the public in 1939, "Peasant Venus" (Nude Venus in the image of the Bavarian Peasant) for 15 thousand Reichsmarock acquired Joseph Göbbels.

In 1940, the peasant "bride" in 1940 acquired for 15 thousand Reichsmarock Minister of Foreign Affairs by Joachim von Ribbentrop, and "Peasant Trilogy" in 1941 bought Gauluyter Munich and Upper Bavaria Adolf Wagner for 66 thousand Reichsmarocks.

In addition, ZEPP Hildz received a gift from the state 1 million Reichsmarocks to buy a land plot, building a house and artistic studio.

After the end of World War II, ZEPP Hildz was mainly restored by damaged cloths, and his own paintings wrote exclusively on religious stories.

Peasant trilogy.

On the eve of the holiday.

Bride.

Peasant Venus.

Hans Schmitz-Videnbruck

Hans Schmitz-Videnbruck (January 3, 1907- December 7, 1944) was a fairly well-known artist with the Nazi authorities. His works were often exhibited and even acquired Hitler, Goebbels and Borman for tens of thousands of Reichsmarocks. Schmitz Videnbruck in 1939 was awarded the National Prize, and in 1940 at the age of 33 became a professor at the Academy of Arts in Dusseldorf.

One of the most famous works of Schmitz-Videnbruck - Triptych "One people is one nation." According to the historian, the associate professor of the Irkutsk National Research Technical University, Anatolevna Kaporgin, "It is difficult to find any other picturesque work that such directly expressed the socio-political priorities of Nazi ideology, like Triptych Hans Shmitts Videnbruck" Workers, Peasants and Soldiers "."

After World War II, the picture was in the US sector and was confiscated as Nazi propaganda. It was taken out of Germany in the United States, where it was broken into three separate parts, considered by themselves "harmless." In 2000, the side panels of Triptych were returned to Germany and kept in the store with the German Historical Museum in Berlin. The central part remains in the USA.

One people are one nation.

People in the fight.

Sculpture and architecture in the Third Reich played a very important role. First of all, this is due to the aesthetic preferences of Hitler himself, which, as is known, was absolutely obsessed with the latter. Historians and now they often say about it, until the fact that in the last days of their life, the Führer engaged in the study of various architectural projects of Berlin's restructuring and other ideas that it fascinated sometimes much more than politics or hostilities.

To the sculpture, Adolf Aloisovich also believed quite carefully, in every way supporting and bridging the scratchners, among which you can select several of the most recognized, official names: Arno Breker, Joseph Torak and Georg Kolbe. The latter, however, in the smallest thing, which is called, blurred itself with Nazism cooperation. He belonged to the older generation, died in 1947, and in Berlin still have a very good museum, a house-workshop in the Westland area.

Albert Speer, Adolf Hitler and Arno Breaker. Paris, 1940

Some curious numbers. It turns out that in 1936, 15,000 architects, 14,300 painters, 2900 sculptors, 4,200 graphs, 2,200 artists, artisans, 1200 designers, design artists, interior artists, garden artists, Literature Artists, Literature Artists, Garden Artists, Literature Publishers, and so on were held in the Imperial Chamber of Culture of the Third Reich. That is, a total of more than 30,000 people served Nazi art, which was largely propaganda. "We must bear the masses of illusion," said Hitler with a plud, discussing the details of the festivities in Nuremberg in 1938. - Serious and without it enough in life. Just because life is serious, people should be raised over everyday life. "

Ideals Hitler were Roman and Greek sculptures

Returning to the sculptors held in the Imperial Chamber of Culture, it is worth noting that among them there were a lot of talented people. And the first place, of course, occupies Arno Breker - a man of unusual fate, who has lived a long and rich life. Breker was born in 1900, and died in 1991, that is, actually lived to the unification of Germany. When he started his career as an artist, he experienced a great influence of Maole's Aristide and the Charles of the Despio, who worked in the style of Auguste Rodin. In Florence, our hero studied Michelangelo's work, in Paris was closely connected with such people as Calder and Picasso. Probably, at that time, he did not even think about the fact that Adolf Hitler's finger would choose him as an official artist.

Arno Breker, Charles Despio and Aristide Mayol at the opening of the exhibition Arno Breaker in the Orangery Gallery. Paris, May 1942

Arno Breker was indeed quite distant from politics and was mainly the so-called pure art. But everything changed, when in 1932 in Rome, where he was, Goebbels arrived and turned to German artists with a call to return to Germany.

Updated in the homeland (we note, with great reluctance), our hero immediately fell under suspicion. Anti-Semitism in Germany then flourished, and the breaker's wife, Grechanka Demeter Mesal, was suspected of Jewish origin. Our hero was in a fairly shaky position. But when it came to the fact that the XI Summer Olympic Games will be held in Germany, and the breaker received an order on the Statue "Dectear" and "Winner", designed to design the Olympic Stadium, his career rapidly went up. He was noticed, all sorts of orders fell on him. The breaker began to make official portraits, sculptures that answered the taste of German Bons.

For the "Decathlon" and the "winner" Breker fell in sight of Hitler

Apotheosis of our hero in the third Reich was the registration of the Reichanceland building. It was the largest project of Nazi architecture, for which the Breker created two statues - the "sword-maker" and "Torchoronec", subsequently renamed Hitler in the "Party" and "Wehrmacht". Naturally, after the war, these monuments were completely destroyed.

By the way, Joseph Stalin was a big admirer of the work of Arno Breaker. In November 1940, during his visit to Berlin Molotov, the wishes were now conveyed to our hero. Now the Soviet leader decorate the Moscow buildings by his works and sculptures, indicating: "Stalin is a big fan of your talent. Your style can inspire the Russian people, he is understandable to him. Unfortunately, we have no sculptors of your scale. "

Stalin was a big admirer of the creativity of the breaker

It must be said that Stalin did not once suggested the breaker to come to Moscow: he did it before the war, in 1940, and after, in 1945-1946, when the Soviet Union was hunted for the German minds and talents. And when the proposal to the Brecer was re-said, he said that Moscow would not go to Moscow, because "and one dictator would be enough with him." By this time, he was already in West Germany, the Denazification court passed and was recognized as a "fellow" of the Hitler's regime. He was aended a fine of 100 brands and demanded that he makes the fountain for his native city (from which he, however, had evolved).

Bust Adolf Hitler Work Arno Breaker

Before we move on to the post-war fate of the breaker, let's say a few words about how he behaved during the war. The fact is that many consider Arno Breaker a key figure of the German occupation of France. Our hero, indeed, was very closely connected with the occupying troops. He was in Paris and spent there the exhibition on which many famous French artists and sculptors were attended, including the despi, Maole, Cokto (for which they were subsequently condemned). And he helped (it was documented) Pablo Picasso and Deine to be soldered from the German concentration camp. After all, few people wonder why it turned out that Picasso, the Communist who lived all the occupation in Paris, the secret police did not touch? And all because the breaker came for him. The Gestapian figures did not want to let go of the Spanish artist, and then the breaker led his last argument. He said: "Yesterday I had breakfast at Fuhrera, who told me that artists are like a Persian, they do not understand anything in politics."

On the proposal from Moscow, the breaker stated: "One dictator is enough with me"

Returning to the post-war years of the life of Arno Breaker, it is worth saying that he was trying in every possible way to wash away from his connection with Nazism, pretending to be just a "companion" of the regime, just engaged in pure art. He made several official portraits, in particular, portraits of Adenauer Conrad, Claus Fuchs, Ludwig Erhard and others.

In 2006, the second wife of Arno Breaker organized an exhibition of his work. It was the first exhibition on which municipal, state money was spent.

Annual "Great German Art Exhibition" (Große Deutsche Kunstaustellung) was a central event of the National Socialist Policy in the field of culture, Hitler trembled to Fine Arts.

The first exhibition opened on July 18, 1937 in the new building of the House of Art, designed in 1933 by architect Paul Ludwig Troost. This building is one of the first samples of the monumental architecture of the Third Reich. It is massively and minimalistic, combines the ancient Roman "imperiscience" with ancient Egyptian angularity. Despite the fact that the neoclassicistic building looks like an ancient Egyptian temple, it is constructed from reinforced concrete.

Two exhibitions

At the solemn opening of the exhibition, which was simultaneously the opening of the building, made a big program speech Adolf Hitler. The next day in Munich, the sadly famous exhibition "Degenerative Art" (Entartete Kunst) opened, at which 650 confiscated works from 32 German museums were shown. The message of the organizers was unequivocal: this is a real, worthy, ideologically impeccable, but is degenerative and decadent.

What art was for the Nazis forbidden and ridiculously, it is well known - this is the avant-garde and modernism of the first third of the 20th century. But how did the halls with official art looked, what exactly they were filled, until the recent people knew only historians. Now the online portal GDK-RESEARCH.DE offers to make a virtual journey through the halls of each of the eight huge exhibitions, consider every work, read who it was created for what money and who exactly sold. Work on the digitization of a huge photo archive and the creation of a database on the Internet went from 2007. The basis served six thick albums with original photos of the interiors of each hall of each exhibition. These photo albums were found in 2004.

Demisertification

Despite its ideological orientation, "big German exhibitions of art" became a commercial enterprise. The building contained a restaurant, cafe and beer, all exhibited works could be bought, the main buyer was the Führer himself. He also performed in the role of a patron, inspirer and patron. Exhibitions opened in July and walked, as a rule, until the end of October.

More than 12 thousand works were shown at eight exhibitions. Each year, the exposition attended about 600 thousand people. Arts were sold by 13 million Reichsmarocks. Only one Hitler spent almost seven million, he acquired more than a thousand work. The international response to gigantic shows was practically absent. After 1945, the work exhibited, for a few exceptions, no longer appeared and not published.

Munich Central Institute of Art History, starting digitizing and publishing old photos, expecting a socio-political and historical and artistic discussion. The draft project aimed, above all, the demiseertification of Nazi art. For a long time it was believed that propaganda art could not be shown, as if the viewing of Nazi Kitcha makes the Nazi person, as if the demon, broken out of these paintings and statues, was united. Describing the German newspapers seen in the online archive, the German newspapers remember the fairy tale of Andersen about the New Dress of the King: Nazi art in most cases it turns out to be banal, sometimes even ridiculous. But most often it is just boring, with a quick look at the interiors of the halls, they bump into the repeated poses of sculptures and expressions of people, men are portrayed by strict and decisive, women - thoughtful and true, the animals are mighty and powerful, landscapes are idyllic.

Lee existed " Present German art " ?

We should change your attitude to the art of the "Third Reich", to overestimate it, believes the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper. Because the Nazis did not know what should be understood under the "German art." In front of the first exhibition, Hitler prescribed and dismissed the "exhibition", then he took away the paintings himself, then he ordered the chosen works by himself. In the end, the case of choosing and swimming pictures "Führer" instructed his personal photographer Henrikh Hoffmann (Heinrich Hoffmann), who overwhelmed the material, guided by unaccomplished considerations of symmetry. It did not cost without paradoxes: the sculptor Rudolf Belling (Rudolf Belling) was invited to a large exhibition, and at the same time his work was attended by the "Degenerative Art" exhibition held in a hundred meters.

Only over the years has formed an idea that it looks at the walls of the house of the arts, and what is not. It was necessary to create an impression of stylistic unity and continuity. Historian Christian Furmaister, one of the project managers, says: "The existence of a single canon of Nazi art is the thesis that is not confirmation." The Nazis did the form that "real German art" exists, they simulated it from all and promoted, but there was a gap between the desired and real. In front of historians today there is a problem - how to characterize and understand the visual clichés of the typical art of the "Third Reich", when it became clear that it was not at all propaganda art in their mass?

The vast majority of the exhibited works consisted of quite apolitical landscape and genre painting, animal and portraits. Propaganda works, of course, were at every exhibition - from 10 to 30 works from 1800. The obvious ideological opuses look like artificially added to the conservative and banal, but completely non-ideological total mass. This circumstance was discussed at the international conference dedicated to the start of the Internet portal. The consideration was expressed that the "URA-propaganda" art made a small group of artists close to power, for the remaining 13 thousand German painters and sculptors "Big Exhibitions" served as a state support program.

Editor: Marina Borisova

Photo: Jean Pol GrandmontAt the beginning of 2014, the film "Treasure Hunters" will be released on the screens - a military detective with George Clooney, Matt Damon and Kate Blanchett. "Monuments Men" - so called members of a special dismissal, officially called the name "The Monument, Fine Arts and Archives Division Of The
Federeal Government ": In recent years of war, it was engaged in the wanish and salvation of works of art hidden by the Nazis in special caches. For this art historical special forces, the war was not so much for European territories as for European culture: the Nazis did not regret the palaces and temples in the occupied territories, using them as fortifications or simply destroying them with bombing and art-stans, and the valuable works of art that could be taken out - Works of old masters and luxury items - hid in secret storage facilities in Germany. Thanks to the "Monuments Men" from the caches was saved, for example, the sculpture of Michelangelo "Madonna Brugge" and "Gent Altar" Jan Wang Eyka. But this old art, his Nazis was appreciated, another part of the treasure seized by them was lucky much less - this is the works of modernist artists who in then Germany had dubious value.

In 1946, "Monuments Men" inspect the picture of Leonardo da Vinci "Lady with Mornostham" before returning it to the charter museum in Krakow

Expressionists, cubists, walkers, surrealists, Dadaists became enemies of Reich before the war. In 1936, throughout Germany, the work of avant-garde arts and private collections of the work of avant-garde art were massive, among which the work of Oscar Cocker, El Lisitsky, Otto Dix, Marka Stegal, Ernsta Ludwig Kirchner, Vasily Kandinsky, Pita Mondriana and other artists, such as Bauhaus schools " In 1937, an exhibition called "Degenerative Art" (Entartetete Kunst) opened in Munich, where the works of modernism classics were accompanied by mocking signatures. All the exhibited works were declared the fruits of the patient's imagination of their authors, and, accordingly, could not be perceived as a full-fledged art.

Preparation of the exhibition "Degenerative Art"

Photo: Fotobank / Getty Images

The Nazis sought to get rid of the "degenerative" art of the Nazis for themselves as possible for themselves, acquiring the art of "true", like Durera or Kranech, - and for this they needed help from experts. Perhaps it was then to art historians, as well as doctors, for the first time in history
become a full bombardment of a war crime. One of those who dealt with the selection and selling avant-garde for the needs of Nazism was the merchant and collector Hildebrand Gurlitt. Since officially selling "Jewish-Bolshevik" art was impossible - it had to be destroyed with the authors, - all operations with it automatically received the status of secret. During work in the Commission under the leadership of Joseph Goebbels, entrepreneurial Hildebrand Gurlitt, in the 30s who made up the exhibition of modernist artists at the Museum of the city of Zwikkau, gathered a collection of more than one and a half thousand works declared by the Nazis outside the law. Perhaps the world would never have learned about this collection - but in 2011 the police accidentally detained the 80-year-old Cornelus Gurlitt, the son of Hildebranda Gurlitta on the border of Switzerland, the son of Hildendand Gurlitta, and then found in his modest apartment of about 1400 clouds of the greatest masters of the late XIX-early XX century.

Photo: Monuments Men Foundation

The discovery of which the German police was silent for two years, by the standards of the beginning of the XXI century - all the same as the find of the tantunkhamon tomb for the century of the past. The whole history of the XX century art was rewritten at one point: according to its official version, these paintings were destroyed by the Nazis; "Monuments Men", which could make their own adjustments to this version, were not too interested in the work of modernists and preferred to risk life for the sake of Titian and Rubens. Even when modern art came into their hands, they could not always appreciate its significance: a meeting of 115 paintings and 19 drawings, registered on Hildebradda Gurlitt, British troops discovered in Hamburg back in 1945. However, Gurlitt, who declared himself a victim of Nazism, managed to prove that the paintings were acquired by him legally, and received them back four years later. The rest of the collection, according to him, died in the bombing of Dresden. As it turns out, it was impossible to believe the gurlitta in anything but his artistic faint.

Church in Elling, transfered by the Nazis in the warehouse of confiscated works of art

Photo: Monuments Men Foundation

Photo: Monuments Men FoundationWhat excites most of all when the avant-garde treasure is detected, so this is a feeling of the discoverer, forgotten by even archaeologists since John Carter. But the value of the Munich Nakhodka is not only that it reveals the new details of the artists' creativity - it adds the current history of the subjunctive tende, which is usually contraindicated. Could it turn out that the case of the Gurlitt family is not a single? What if precious - in the literal sense of the word, over the past years, they went up to unimaginable in the 1940s - the works of modernists are waiting in the hour not at all in salt mines and abandoned quarries, from where "Monuments Men" have learned the work of old masters? Literally a few days before the announcement of the Munich Find as a result of a thorough inventory conducted by the Netherlands Museum Association, it was found out that 139 paintings from various Dutch museums - including the work of Matisse, Kandinsky, Clee and Lisitsky - were confiscated by the Nazis from Jewish families. Not all the work can be returned to the heirs of the victims, but the claims of restitution almost always accompany any major find of pre-war art. The most lawsuits in recent years have been submitted to the works of Gustav Clima. His landscape "Litzlberg on Lake Attersee", confiscated in 1941 at Amali Redlich, was returned to her far relative from Canada in 2011. American Maria Altman in the 2000s managed to regain the picture of Klimt "Golden Adel", taken away the Nazis from her ancestors, Family Bauer family. In 2010, the American family has achieved significant monetary compensation at the Leopold Foundation for the picture of Egon Shile "Portrait of Valley". Before getting to the collection of Rudolf Leopold, the picture was confiscated by the Nazis from Lei Bondi Yarai, the Jewish gallery shell, who left Austria after the arrival of the Nazis. How many lawsuits about the restitution will come after the publication of the list of all paintings found in Munich, difficult to imagine.

Soldiers with a "self portrait" of Rembrandt, who was subsequently returned to the Karlsruhe Museum

Photo: Monuments Men Foundation

Photo: East News / AFPAccording to the German police, the Gurlitta collection - 1258 paintings without frames and 121 framed - was kept in a havor-unobed indoor room. Among them - a previously unknown job of Chagal, Renoara paintings, Picasso, Toulouse-Lotrek, Dix, Beckman, Mulk and many other artists, including about 300 works, which were exhibited in 1937 at the degenerative art exhibition. The mystery, by the way, is not fully revealed: it is still unknown, where Cornelius Gurlitt is now and why he hid the paintings of the most expensive artists of the 20th century for many years in his tiny apartment. From time to time he was selling something (for example, in November 2011, it was put up for sale through the LEMPERTZ Cologne Auction House Pastel Max Beckman "Teller Lviv"), but the main treasures kept in dust and garbage, demonstrating full indifference to their historical (and material) value.

This event will surely enter the history textbooks, and Hollywood scenariors can already be buried for a new job, especially since the theme of genius and evils in its concrete refraction - the ratio of Nazism with high art - has long fascinated Hollywood: here you can recall the most famous archaeologist-anti-infrasteist Indiana Jones, who just fought with the Third Reich for the cultural heritage, only for him the most important arts was religious; And Peter O'Tule in the role of the Nazi General, equally loved impressionism and mass murders, in the film 1967 "Night of the General". You can begin the casting for the role of Hildebrand Gurlitt (who died in the car accident in 56th) - however, it is possible that this story will still have its own sequel.