Nazi Art

A detailed Summary of Nazi Art

The German Nazis of the 1930's and 1940's had an explicitly approved form of art. Unlike the other totalitarian regimes of the era, the approved forms of art were firmly integrated into their iconography and ideology, and excluded any other art movement, including those that were popular at the time. These approved forms of art held a limited number of themes which were repeated as often as necessary, in order to portray the values the Nazis deemed relevant to their cause. These values were, of course, fundamentally nationalistic, and those themes approved by the government were meant to glorify not only the Aryan race, but specifically the German nation.

The painting Out To Harvest, by Oskar Martin-Amorbach, is a typical, governmentally approved, work of Nazi art. It depicts a family of farmers going out to harvest on what seems to be a summer day in a typical German countryside. It shows three generations of that family, a young boy at about 4-5 years of age, his mother, and what appear to be his father, grandfather, and a young woman who might be his older sister or aunt. As it's title implies they are going out to harvest, for they are carrying scythes and rakes for harvesting and a smal

What makes this painting a typical work of Nazi art is it's glorification of peasantry. Not only is it mere peasantry it glorifies, but German peasantry. Now, while on the surface it may not sound a very Nazi-esque topic to the layman, it embodies many of the ideals that the Nazis stood for, one of them being the aforementioned Blood and Soil, another being the portrayal of peasantry as a source of strength and purity. The reason peasantry was held in such high regard by the Nazis, was that the peasant family was seen as a self-reliant, interdependent whole based on unity, that was portrayed as a symbol of strength and comradeship. Farmers were meant to be seen as a modest but proud people, being a fundamental part of the German population, or, to quote the German minister of works at the time, Richard-Walther Darre, "the raw material, and the foundation of the German race".

The main purpose was of course to affect the citizens of the Third Reich on a psychological level. While the paintings were aimed at people in the form of propaganda, the message was somewhat subliminal. People were never specifically told that this was the way the Fuhrer wanted them to be, but they were instead supposed to be influenced by it on an unconscious level, much in the same way anti-semitic propaganda movies were meant to affect them. These paintings were never used to tell people how they should be and how they should think, but the people were supposed to "read between the lines", so to speak, and figure it out by themselves. While the people probably sensed that conformity was the way to go, the purpose of paintings, such as Out To Harvest, wasn't to tell them how the government wanted them to be, but to influence them into wanting to be this way on their own accord, and therefore be the strong proud citizens that the Reich wanted them to be.

This painting is not only a glorification of the German landscape, but also a glorification of the Ge

Some common words found in the essay are:
Third Reich, Richard-Walther Darre, Oskar Martin-Amorbach, German Nazis, Sigmund Freud, Blood Soil, Goethe According, Germany Married, Farm Life, Schopenhauerean/ Freudian, german citizen, german landscape, paintings meant, approved forms art, simple people, simple pleasures, german race, message german, glorification german, nazi art, idea german,

Approximate Word count = 1318
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Foreign