2020 IB Extended Essays

14

The Success of Censorship and its Effect on the Art Following The success of Hitler’s attempts of art censorship can be debated. In terms of the Entartete Kunst exhibition, many people attended to admire the artworks on display for the last time before they were destroyed despite the derogatory slogans covering the gallery walls (Daley, 2017). Although there was a portion of the German population that actively despised and spat at the paintings on display, the intention of making the exhibition a laughingstock had backfired. Due to the Nazi rule, expressionism and other art movements in Germany such as Bauhaus came to an end. From the ashes rose post-expressionist art movements, the first one being magic realism in 1960, 15 years after the fall of Nazi Germany. Magic realism was heavily influenced by the movement that came before it, however it was self-defined by artists as a rejection of expressionism. Pieces such as “The Last Supper” and “Lady with an Ermine” were recovered, however “Portrait of a Young Man” and “The Trench” were never located. The disappearance of Dix’s piece has resulted in a lack of visual artistic documentation of the horrors of the first world war. “Portrait of a Young Man”, although not rich in concepts, was a prime example of Raphael’s skill and attention to detail. Both of these paintings were not photographed in colour prior to their disappearances; therefore the coloured digital images are merely a vague suggestion to the hues used. This uncertainty has made it difficult for critics and the average viewer to critique the artists’ use of colour.