Entartete Kunst
Entartete Kunst was adopted by the Nazi Party as a movement against modern art that they considered to be degenerate. Any artwork considered as generate was taken from museums and private collections. After showing these works as a traveling exhibit for three years crossing Germany and Austria, most were sold, lost or assumed to be destroyed. Dominated by a single man-- Adolf Hitler, promised to make a "New Germany" inspired by the vision of the Master Race cleansed of degenerates.
Modern Art was viewed as debased and corrupt using the Degenerate Art exhibit as its funeral. People who had visited the exhibit recalled how many of the pictures were without frames, crowded together, hung crooked on the wall or displayed sluggishly. The walls plastered with the "degenerate art" were smeared with graffiti, mocking the art as a creation of "sick minds" and an insult to German women. Many people saw the art as downgrading to the (art)work of men driven by the desire to destroy Germany and the Germans.
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner was one of the founders who established the new movement known as Expressionism. The Expressionists were in revolt against impressionism and tested distorted forms with intense colors to create playful and eccentric paintings such as Kirchner's Bavarian mountain home, In den Lärchen. (date unknown) Which was a significant change from the ideal realistic landscapes usually painted at the time. The expressionists' artwork fascinated Hitler leading him to try and copy it.
World War I was a turning point for Hitler as it was for many of the Expressionists who served their country. Hitler found his purpose or destiny as the artists found the insanity of the world. Kirchner went crazy and his bizarre imagination was reflected in his paintings.
Kirchner’s Self-portrait as a soldier was painted in 1917 during a absence caused by a nervous breakdown. Kirchner became a leading Expressionist during the 1920's but became so depressed at the growth of Nazism and their criticism of his work that he committed suicide in 1938.
The artwork gives me a sense of the artist's vibrant feelings that express the imagination of the crazy emotions the artists of the "degenerate" but not so degenerate art at the time of war, anxiety and madness. Being able to release their emotions through paintings and drawings whether it is on canvas or cardboard, the extravagant creations of the degenerate artists are portrayed effortlessly. The art is beautiful and tests our mind to try and understand what the art is trying to express.