The art of the Third Reich, the officially approved art produced in Nazi Germany between 1933 and 1945, was characterized by a style of Romantic realism based on classical models. While banning modern styles as degenerate, the Nazis promoted paintings and sculptures that were narrowly traditional in manner and that exalted the "blood and soil" values of racial purity, militarism, and obedience. Other popular themes for Nazi art were the Volk at work in the fields, a return to the simple virtues of Heimat (love of homeland), the manly virtues of the National Socialist struggle, and the lauding of the female activities of child bearing and raising symbolized by the phrase Kinder, Küche, Kirche ("children, kitchen, church").
Similarly, music was expected to be tonal and free of jazz influence; films and plays were censored.
Nazi art bears a close similarity to the Soviet propaganda art style of Socialist Realism, and the term heroic realism has sometimes been used to describe both artistic styles.
Among the well-known artists endorsed by the Nazis were the sculptors Josef Thorak and Arno Breker, and painters Werner Peiner, Adolf Wissel and Conrad Hommel.
Read more about Art Of The Third Reich: Historical Background, Degenerate Art, Creation of The Reichskulturkammer, Art Theft, Individual Artists
Famous quotes containing the words art of and/or art:
“It ought to be illegal for an artist to marry.... If the artist must marry let him find someone more interested in art, or his art, or the artist part of him, than in him. After which let them take tea together three times a week.”
—Ezra Pound (1885–1972)
“In contrast to the flux and muddle of life, art is clarity and enduring presence. In the stream of life, few things are perceived clearly because few things stay put. Every mood or emotion is mixed or diluted by contrary and extraneous elements. The clarity of art—the precise evocation of mood in the novel, or of summer twilight in a painting—is like waking to a bright landscape after a long fitful slumber, or the fragrance of chicken soup after a week of head cold.”
—Yi-Fu Tuan (b. 1930)