Part two of our double feature consists of male nudes done from 1920 to 1948.
Anton Kolig really came into his own as an expressionist painter after World War I.
(Midway through World War II, the Nazis forced him to retire because they found
his art degenerate. Imagine that. I'm surprised it took them that long, and even more
surprised they didn't send him to a camp.) Above is The Complaint from 1920.
It is amazing how the pendulum swung in Germany. It had been very open about nudity (including male nudity) and then it swung hard the other way in so many things in such a terrible way. It is amazing he made it through any part of WW2 as thing had already been quite bad for sometime. It’s good some of his works survive.
ReplyDeleteIt wasn't the nudity so much as the style and themes of Kolig's work thjat the Nazis didn't like. Other artists, notably Arno Breker, got away with more literal nudity because they idealized "aryan" types.
DeleteBlond male in expressionist form, far from the Nazi ideal of Aryan men.
ReplyDeleteThis Kolig work is more natural than the formalism the Nazi’s embraced.
While Nazi Germany rejected all modern art forms, Fascist Italy encouraged Futurist art styles….:)
It's there, but the Nazis wouldn't let themselves see it.
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