Reading Questions: Barron and Mosse on Degenerate Art (CR 94-131)

 

  1. Is Stefanie Barron, “1937: Modern Art and Politics in Prewar Germany” a primary source or a secondary source? How can you tell?
  2. What does Barron mean when she writes about the “politicization of aesthetic issues” (CR. 94)? Have we seen other examples of the “politicization of aesthetic issues” in this course?
  3. On CR 95, and again on CR, 101 and CR, 105, Barron names many artists. Where would you go first to find brief biographies of these artists?
  4. Who was in control of regulating artistic production in the Nazi state? (CR, 95-6)
  5. Why do you think the Nazi state paid such attention to culture?
  6. In the context of the Nazi art exhibition of 1937, what did degenerate mean? What are the origins of the term? (CR, 97)
  7. What kinds of art did Nazi art experts find to be “degenerate”?
  8. Barron refers to Expressionism, Cubism and Futurism. Where would you go first to find brief definitions of these artistic movements?
  9. What purpose were juxtapositions like those shown in the illustration on CR 100 supposed to serve?
  10. Look at the illustration on CR 112. Where have you seen the image marked #1 in the upper left hand corner before?
  11. What themes were featured in the “Degenerate Art” exhibition? (CR, 112-3)
  12. On CR, 115, Barron asks: “Why did the National Socialists go to such an effort to mount, publicize and circulate [the Entartete Kunst exhibition]? What did they hope to gain?” Here Barron uses a rhetorical question to make the transition to a new paragraph. She already knows the answer, so it’s not a genuine question. Are you satisfied with the answer she gives?
  13. Barron concludes: “Perhaps after a serious look at events that unfolded over half a century ago in Germany [now, actually about seventy years ago], we may apply what we learn to our own predicament, in which for the first time in the postwar era the arts and freedom of artistic expression in America are facing a serious challenge.”(CR, 117) What is Barron talking about? Can you think of any examples that would support or refute her assertion?
  14. What can you learn from the Notes that Barron provides? (CR, 117-9)
  15. What does Mosse mean with the phrase “beauty without sensuality”? Would Botticelli’s “Primavera” be an example of “beauty without sensuality”?
  16. Mosse assumes that you know who Robert Mapplethorpe is. If you don’t already know, where could you go quickly to find out? (CR, 120)
  17. What definition of degeneration does Mosse provide? (CR, 122)
  18. What does fin de siècle mean?
  19. Do you think it’s possible to portray nudity and not have it be sensual?
  20. Do you know what Paragraph 175 is? Mosse assumes you do. If you don’t already know, where would you go to find out what it is?
  21. What distinction does Mosse say the Nazis made between the private and public representation of women?
  22. The Nazis sought to express morality by promoting “accepted ideals of beauty while projecting its fears and ideas of ugliness onto the very groups the National Socialists were eventually determined to exterminate.”(CR, 128) Do you think there is an “accepted ideal of beauty” in the United States today? If so, does the promotion of that ideal serve to denigrate those who don’t conform to that ideal? Do you think that in the contemporary United States, ideals of beauty are related to conceptions of morality?
  23. Mosse argues that the head of the SS, Heinrich Himmler, was obsessed with “respectability” and “his fear of all sensuality encouraged him to magnify the homoerotic homosexual potentialities of the Männerbund [all-male association/league/organization], including his own SS, which often represented itself symbolically as an idealized seminude male. If he emphasized the contrast between homosexuality and manliness, it was because of his fear that the one could easily turn into the other.” (CR, 129) Do you agree that a kind of exaggerated masculinity reflects fears of male homosexuality?
  24. Why did Himmler consider homosexual men to be “racial” enemies?(CR, 129)
  25. Mosse concludes that “for most people respectability was and is much more than merely a form of behavior or an ideal of beauty; for many, perhaps even for the vast majority, it offers cogent proof of the cohesiveness of society, a cohesiveness necessary for all systems of government, not just for National Socialism.”(CR 130) Do you agree? How would you define respectability in 2008 in the United States? (see question 22 above, which is related to this question)
  26. Do you agree with Mosse that “after periods of sexual tolerance the limits are always reimposed”?(CR, 130)
  27. What aesthetic does Hitler promote in his speech of 19 July 1937? (CR, 132)
  28. What for Hitler is evidence that art is “degenerate”?
  29. What, for Hitler, is the relationship of the artist to the larger society?