I'm always curious to know the favorite media of well-known people, what they watch or read for their own pleasure when they're off the time clock. I know Stalin was partial to John Wayne films, and Maria Callas liked to read Archie comics. Ayn Rand read detective stories. What, I wondered, did Hitler prefer when he was sitting around in his pajamas, just passing the time? Well, I don't know what he read, but thanks to a recent article in Arts and Letters Daily I do know what art he hung in his private rooms.
According to the article, Hitler's favorite artist was a Swiss landscape painter named Arnold Bocklin. Hitler owned Bocklin's most famous picture, "The Isle of the Dead" (above).
Actually Bocklin did several versions of the same picture, all capturing the scene in different light. The one Hitler owned has been lost.
Here's (above) the Bocklin displayed in a place of honor, next to Hitler's fireplace.
Bocklin was interested in the legendary goings-on of the Aryans in old Germany. He was a friend of the Mitford family, who organized expeditions to search for artifacts of old German history, and who had a special interest in the real-life site that inspired the Isle of the Dead painting. That's Hitler sitting next to Unity Mitford above.
Bocklin was a pantheist who believed the forest possessed a kind of vital energy which we, as creatures of the forest, need to connect with to discover our true natures. In the painting above I assume that's Pan in the bushes.
Bocklin's mystical beliefs certainly gave him an edge. If I were looking for something to draw in the outback, I might have passed by this scrub (above) without taking notice. After all, scrub is usually regarded by artists as nothing more than background for really romantic subjects like cliffs and tall oak trees. Bocklin correctly realized that scrub is the heart and soul of the forest, and probably gives as much shelter to animals as trees do.
Bocklin was also fond of the philosopher's landscape (above) where thinking man and nature co-exist in harmony.
Another favorite was Carl Spitzweg (above). I like Spitzweg too, but I have to admit that he's the kind of artist you like when you're young and still struggling to learn the fundamentals. Hitler's art career was cut off early when that struggle was still with him, and pictures like this might have had sentimental value for him because they reminded him of his youth.
He may also have been fond of Spitzweg because both had the same taste for old, unpretentious urban architecture. If Hitler had remained a painter his style might have taken a direction somewhat like this. This would have caused endless frustration for him as modernism took hold. My guess is that he eventually would have attempted an awkward synthesis of the traditional and modern and come to grief with it.
Spitzweg had another side, which might also have appealed to Hitler. He was a painter of lush, romantic landscapes like the one above.
If posters of the above two Spitzwegs were for sale in retail stores today, my guess is that they'd sell pretty well. They depict the world the way we'd like it to be, and express deep yearning for a calm and rational utopia. It's borderline kitsch, but very appealing at the same time.
Franz Von Stuck (above) is sometimes cited as a favorite of the young Hitler. Over time Von Stuck tried to incorporate modern Deco technique into his canvases (the orange and blue canvas above), which is one of the reasons I thought Hitler might eventually have tried the same synthesis.
Hitler's taste in art did evolve over time. His famous plan for the new Berlin (above, re-named Germania) showed that in his maturity he'd definitely been influenced by Art Deco.
Here's (above) a video commissioned by The History Channel, showing what it would have been like to be a motorist, driving down the main boulevard of Germania. I find this modernist vision to be ugly in the extreme, and not at all consistent with the gentle romanticism favored by Spitzweg.
I agree with Lester who said in a comment that Hitler's heart remained with the Spitzweg style, but there's a lot of evidence that his mature mind was seduced by Deco. A lot of the Nazi propaganda posters were done in that style, and it's difficult to believe that they could have been printed without his approval. .
The mature Hitler is also said to have liked Deco artist Anselm Feuerbach (above), who painted classically-posed contemplative women. A bit cold for my taste. In the 30s and 40s a lot of Germans painted this way, maybe because it was a government approved style. I doubt that Boklin or Spitzweg would have approved.
This Cranach painting (above) hung in one of Hitler's public offices. The painting was a gift and my guess is that Hitler admired it only in a formal way.
20 comments:
At the risk of saying something which might be misunderstood: I would call Hitler an artist, too. He was one of the most powerful and evil artists of all time, because he made the world and all its people his canvas. Even though he never grasped the technique of making beautiful things on paper or canvas, he ultimately had the unique power to try and remake the entire world to his aesthetic tastes. To him, everything was about beauty or ugliness.
nice one Eddie,
For not so long ago, Hitlers own paintings were sold at an auction, and was sold very cheap I think, I can't really remember the prize, but I was surprised that they weren't more expensive...
- Cheers, Thomas
Good post! This is Intriguing!
"I know Stalin was partial to John Wayne films, and Maria Callas liked to read Archie comics. Ayn Rand read detective stories."
More o less What is the source you have for this info?Where did you found it?
WOW!
That Isle Of The Dead painting looks REALLY familiar... in fact, almost that EXACT same image is in the trailer for the new Scorsese film, Shutter Island.
As I watched the trailer, I noticed Scorsese was using a lot of symmetry, which reminded me of two people: Wes Anderson and Hitler.
The latter because of the blog post YOU did on Hitler's paintings, Eddie! You mentioned one time that the flowers on Hitler's paintings looked somewhat symmetrical and mathematically and equally spaced apart, which I think you said was indicative of mental illness. It looked disturbing. Symmetry isn't natural. It's like drinking windex for your eyeballs.
And when I saw that trailer, I went "Aha! Scorsese is paying tribute to his favourite young director AND using symmetrical composition to disorient the viewer. The symmetry indicates mental illness, and the entire movie is about mental illness!
Now that I see that "Isle Of The Dead" painting, this theory comes full circle I can't wait for the movie to see if I'm right.
Of course, this is all just a theory, but I do find it fascinating.
Some words seem to be blanked out by strings of commas, are your posts being censored by the government
I heard the late John Hughes loved Ren & Stimpy!
Anon: I published the article by mistake before I was finished writing it. That's because the submit and save buttons are only a millimeter apart.
All those random bits of punctuation were just markers to remind me of places I wanted to return to after I got to the end.
Denise: Aaargh! I've had those facts in my head for a long time. I can't remember the source.
I had read that Hitler also had a copy (most likely stolen or illegally duplicated)of Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, which he would watch over and over again in his private screening room.
The Nazis were such hypocrites. They held shows to mock any art they claimed didn't glorify the Aryan race, but the paintings Hitler loved look like ones that would hang in those galleries.
Bocklin was also a big influence on Georgio DeChirico. I guess he was a better painter than Hitler.
I think Caspar David Friedrich was also a fav, but I don't think H. owned any.
I really like Bocklin too. Here is a Japanese site with great images by Bocklin...
http://www.muian.com/muian05/05Boecklin.htm
They have a lot of other amazing stuff if you can figure out how to get around from gallery to gallery.
Congratulations on being featured on The Daily Hitler!
Steve: The Daily Hitler!?ˆ There's a Daily Hitler!? Well, that's the internet for you!
Hitler owned a picture called "The Five Senses." A French visitor was said to have muttered, "It should be called The Four Senses, as taste is lacking."
Actually, H. didn't have terribly bad taste, but he did (surprise! surprise!) have very rigid and intolerant tastes. He loathed the modernists and knew little about them. So with all due respect I disagree with Eddie's speculation that if 'Dolf had entered the profession "he eventually would have attempted an awkward synthesis of the traditional and modern and come to grief with it."
I think he would have ended up a rigid traditionalist, and probably would have been regarded as a curious artistic fossil.
Zoran: The post is still up. You must have tried to access it at the same time I took it down to add to it.
Lester: Thanks for the comment! It prompted me to expand the post in an effort to defend my position. See what you think of the new version.
The mature Hitler was no friend of people who like traditional art. True, he didn't like abstraction, but he was seduced by other aspects of modern art.
I love modern art myself, but the very worst examples of it can be dark, souless, and brutal. Hitler made some bad choices in this respect.
It's not just the brutalist architecture that he favored, it's the cardboard cutout, minimalist muscle men and sappy women that he encouraged in German paintings and sculptures of his time. Spitzweg and Bocklin would surely have repudiated these.
If memory serves me, Hitler's taste in architecture had more of a classical than deco influence. I believe he told his architect to emulate the structures of ancient Rome, not only because of their imposing appearance, but also so that they would leave impressive ruins once the thousand year reich ended. Naturally, the results weren't exactly as stately.
Charles: You have to give it to the guy for considering what kind of ruins the buildings would make.
The Deco influence was all over the arts in the Hitler era. It can be classical, but it adapts the classical style, streamlining it and taking out the emotion.
Jorge: Thanks for the link! The film looks great! Thanks too, for remembering the remark about symmetry. You can make people look really creepy on photoshop by making their face symmetrical.
mind the little "evil shadow" in the spitzweg landscape picture. i think hitler wouldn't have liked that sort of satiric turn on romantic ideas...
The art you display is great beyond your ability to understand. You are disgusting.
Apart from all those verboten banners and uniforms...weapons etc no taste whatsoever!
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