The Gallery of Miracles and Madness: Insanity, Modernism, and Hitler’s War on Art is a fascinating introduction to the Nazi’s “culture war” – their atThe Gallery of Miracles and Madness: Insanity, Modernism, and Hitler’s War on Art is a fascinating introduction to the Nazi’s “culture war” – their attempt to not only eliminate the art but the artist. And it began (more or less) with the least regarded in society, the mentally ill.
In the first part of the book – “Bildnerei” – English recounts the effort of Hans Prinzhorn, a German psychiatrist, to investigate the artistic output of asylum patients. He had an insight that it might provide a window on their psychoses, and he discovered a wealth of striking images rivaling what modern artists were producing (in fact, the author shows how these works – once he had publicized them – directly influenced some of the biggest names and movements in the art world, including Dadaism and Surrealism).
Prinzhorn was not the first person to take the art of psychiatric patients seriously, but he was the first to present its enormous diversity to a wide audience to give patients “a presentation worthy of their talents,” as Breton once remarked. The doctor’s achievement was one of inclusion. He had taken work by the most marginalized group in German society and held it up for public regard – as high as that of the great artists of the past. The effect was to inspire new journeys of inner exploration, to expand the circle of permitted art-makers beyond the trained elite, and to broaden the definition of art in recognition that there were more kinds of creative expression than anyone had previously imagined (p. 221).
English uses one of the most interesting patients, Franz Karl Bühler, to illustrate his point. Bühler was committed c. 1900 and would spend the next 40 years in institutions until the Nazis murdered him in 1940 – gassed in one of the prototype killing rooms the SS experimented with in anticipation of the Final Solution.
“Entartung” focuses on the man whose pathological hatreds informed Nazi ideology and found much sympathy among the reactionary elements of German society – Adolf Hitler. Parts three and four – “Bildersturm” and “Euthanasie,” respectively – describe the NSDAP’s efforts to dehumanize the “undesirables” & then experiment with the most efficient ways to deal with them. Trigger warning: Some of the chapters in “Euthanasie” are graphic in describing what Nazis did to “useless people.” Additionally, they learned how to make their programs palatable to the German people. As English points out, “[t]he Nazis relied on the ability of people not to imagine themselves in someone else’s shoes. The lack of connection was very much the point” (p. 227).
Very much recommended. English’s writing is clear and compelling, and he presents an aspect of the Nazism that most general readers haven’t heard much about.
PS – I can’t claim much discernment when it comes to art, but I was taken with Bühler’s work – what’s presented in the book. Unfortunately, much of his work as well as the other art collected by Prinzhorn, the Nazis destroyed. It survives, if at all, largely in reproductions. There are two particularly impactful works of Bühler that have exercised a fascination with me: Der Würgengel (The choking angel) and his self-portrait, Das Selbst....more
What does it say about the 21st century reader that the editor of this slim volume feels constrained to write:
So these remedies come with a health war
What does it say about the 21st century reader that the editor of this slim volume feels constrained to write:
So these remedies come with a health warning: don't try this at home. Those of us who have gathered these tips do not endorse them. You will not fix incontinence by sitting naked in a vat of ale. You will not stop your own wounds bleeding by slaying a pig. Nor do we condone the things done to other people or animals in these remedies. Please do not shave the skin off your feet to make a woman love you against her will; this is immoral. Please do not slit owls open to cure your gout; this is cruel (p. 5)
Wakelin has collected some of the odder medical remedies he and his students have come across in studying Medieval texts. He does make the point that these concoctions are outliers; most remedies were relatively harmless and some could have been efficacious (if only as placebos)....more
It's a collection of short essays (most are 2-4 pages) debunking stereotypes - exactly what you'd expect from the title, and it's not false advertising. I was particularly interested in Mihesuah's discussion of religion in many American Indian societies....more
In sum: "So much depends on who is looking, from ancient master or ancient slave to eighteenth-century connoisseur or twenty-first-century tourist. AnIn sum: "So much depends on who is looking, from ancient master or ancient slave to eighteenth-century connoisseur or twenty-first-century tourist. And so much depends on the context in which they look, whether ancient cemetery or temple, English stately home or modern museum. I am not sure that it is ever possible entirely to recreate the views of those who first saw classical art, and I am not sure that it is the be all and end all of our understanding anyway (the changing ways these objects have been seen through the centuries is an important part of their history too). But in How Do We Look I have tried to reflect the domestic ordinariness - and occasionally the flamboyance - of some ancient art, and I have tried to recapture something of 'the shock of the new'." (p. 205-6)...more
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