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When you bring up contemporary critique of Hitler's paintings it's worth noting that Hitler's ill-fated aspirations as a painter came in a time and place where
by ajxs 7y ago
When you bring up contemporary critique of Hitler's paintings it's worth noting that Hitler's ill-fated aspirations as a painter came in a time and place where art was moving in leaps and bounds towards much more abstract styles. I'm not an expert in this area, so I can't really qualify exactly what you'd call the fashion of the time, but it certainly wasn't the classicism that Hitler's paintings represented.
For an amateur painter, I think most people agree he had some talent, but he'd have a hard time getting accepted by a much more avant-garde art establishment.
- goto11 7y agoI don't think that is the case. Hitler was rejected from the entrance exam to the Vienna academy in 1905. At that point the academy was notoriously conservative (which is what led to the "secession" movement). It certainly did not represent the avant-garde in the modern sense. The tendency the "art establishment" prefer abstract, avant-garde art is much more recent. Probably in part spurred by Nazisms campaign against "entartete Kunst"!
- ajxs 7y agoInteresting! Maybe I've been misinformed. I might have my timeline a bit confused, I had always thought this was the case.
- goto11 7y agoI think is is just a more compelling narrative that Hitler was rejected because he didn't make crazy incomprehensible "my 5-year old son could have made that!" avant-garde art. But note that cubism was barely invented in 1907, and the academy represented a conservative view of art. If you look at the kind of art Hitler endorsed when he came to power, it was actually pretty close to the academy style.
- ajxs 7y agoThat is a compelling narrative I guess. I had always associated that period of Viennese art with that of Gustav Klimt, who seems to have been reasonably successful in that period. He probably didn't represent the conservative views of the academy as you said.
- goto11 7y agoNo Klimt represented the "Secession" movement which at that time was in opposition to the establishment and the academy. According to wikipedia: "in particular, opposing the domination of the official Vienna Academy of the Arts, the Vienna Künstlerhaus, and official art salons, with its traditional orientation toward Historicism. " https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna_Secession https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna_Secession I think Nazims famous opposition to modern art have been conflated with Hitlers own rejection from the academy. He wasn't rejected due due different genre preference, but because he wasn't good enough in drawing anything beside architecture.