Degenerate art

Degenerate art (from the German: entartete Kunst) was the official platform adopted by the Nazi regime for banning modern art in favor of Heroic Art. Based on Romantic realism, Heroic Art was meant to exemplify the German race in order to project a moral statement in a simpler, and more conventional style. Heroic Art symbolized racially pure art, free from distortion and corruption, while modern styles deviated from the prescribed norm of classical beauty. Racially pure artists produced racially pure art, and modern artists of an inferior racial strain produced works which were contorted. Ironically, the theory originated with the Jewish intellectual, Max Nordau. In the Nazi adaptation it was used to defend claims of a cultural decline and racist theory.

Partial listing of German artists in entarte Kunst

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Image:BECKMANN FAMILY.jpg|Art by Max Beckmann

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Image:Oedipus Rex.jpg|Art by Max Ernst

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Image:Das Licht und Etliches (Paul Klee, 1931).jpg|Art by Paul Klee

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Image:Fate-animals.jpg|Art by Franz Marc

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Image:NoldeSunflowers.JPG|Art by Emil Nolde

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• Jankel Adler
• Ernst Barlach
• Max Beckmann
• Otto Dix
• Max Ernst
• Otto Griebel
• George Grosz
• Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
• Paul Klee
• Gerhard Marcks
• Emil Nolde
• Franz Marc
• Max Pechstein
• Karl Schmidt-Rottluff
• Ernst-Wilhelm Nay