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Degenerate art ((ドイツ語:Entartete Kunst)) was a term adopted by the Nazi regime in Germany to describe virtually all modern art. Such art was banned on the grounds that it was un-German, Jewish, or Communist in nature, and those identified as degenerate artists were subjected to sanctions. These included being dismissed from teaching positions, being forbidden to exhibit or to sell their art, and in some cases being forbidden to produce art. ''Degenerate Art'' also was the title of an exhibition, held by the Nazis in Munich in 1937, consisting of modernist artworks chaotically hung and accompanied by text labels deriding the art. Designed to inflame public opinion against modernism, the exhibition subsequently traveled to several other cities in Germany and Austria. While modern styles of art were prohibited, the Nazis promoted paintings and sculptures that were traditional in manner and that exalted the "blood and soil" values of racial purity, militarism, and obedience. Similar restrictions were placed upon music, which was expected to be tonal and free of any jazz influences; disapproved music was termed degenerate music. Films and plays were also censored. ==Reaction against modernism== The early twentieth century was a period of wrenching changes in the arts. In the visual arts, such innovations as Cubism, Dada and Surrealism—following Symbolism, Post-Impressionism and Fauvism—were not universally appreciated. The majority of people in Germany, as elsewhere, did not care for the new art which many resented as elitist, morally suspect, and too often incomprehensible.〔Adam 1992, p. 29〕 Under the Weimar government of the 1920s, Germany emerged as a leading center of the ''avant-garde''—the birthplace of Expressionism in painting and sculpture, of the atonal musical compositions of Arnold Schoenberg, and the jazz-influenced work of Paul Hindemith and Kurt Weill. Films such as Robert Wiene's'' The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari'' (1920) and F.W. Murnau's ''Nosferatu'' (1922) brought Expressionism to cinema. The Nazis viewed the culture of the Weimar period with disgust. Their response stemmed partly from a conservative aesthetic taste, and partly from their determination to use culture as a propaganda tool.〔Adam 1992, p. 110〕 On both counts, a painting such as Otto Dix's ''War Cripples'' (1920) was anathema to them. It unsparingly depicts four badly disfigured veterans of the First World War, then a familiar sight on Berlin's streets, rendered in caricatured style. Featured in the Degenerate Art exhibition, it would hang next to a label accusing Dix—himself a volunteer in World War I〔Norbert Wolf, Uta Grosenick (2004), (''Expressionism'' ), Taschen, p. 34. ISBN 3-8228-2126-8〕—of "an insult to the German heroes of the Great War".〔Barron 1991, p.54〕 As dictator, Hitler gave his personal taste in art the force of law to a degree never before seen. Only in Stalin's Soviet Union, where Socialist Realism was the mandatory style, had a modern state shown such concern with regulation of the arts.〔Barron 1991, p.10〕 In the case of Germany, the model was to be classical Greek and Roman art, seen by Hitler as an art whose exterior form embodied an inner racial ideal.〔Grosshans 1983, p. 87〕 The reason for this, as Henry Grosshans points out, is that Hitler "saw Greek and Roman art as uncontaminated by Jewish influences. Modern art was (as ) an act of aesthetic violence by the Jews against the German spirit. Such was true to Hitler even though only Liebermann, Meidner, Freundlich, and Marc Chagall, among those who made significant contributions to the German modernist movement, were Jewish. But Hitler () took upon himself the responsibility of deciding who, in matters of culture, thought and acted like a Jew."〔Grosshans 1983, p. 86〕 The supposedly "Jewish" nature of all art that was indecipherable, distorted, or that represented "depraved" subject matter was explained through the concept of degeneracy, which held that distorted and corrupted art was a symptom of an inferior race. By propagating the theory of degeneracy, the Nazis combined their anti-Semitism with their drive to control the culture, thus consolidating public support for both campaigns.〔Barron 1991, p.83〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Degenerate art」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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