erasure poem:
Hitler and Art
Janet Kuypers
3/13/17
These are selected words from excerpts
of a key Adolf Hitler speech on art
in Nuremberg, September 6, 1938.
the endowment of a true artist
is that his work of art
expresses the general will of a period
works of art rightly mirror
the inner mind
of age
of life
at present,
expression of the world with race
will turn to ages which
have already possessed
freedom of the spirit,
of the will, and of the mind
This, naturally,
the manifestation in art
shall be influenced
in a thousand ways
through the evidences
and memories
of that which still,
as an ideal force
lives on
and works on
in the imagination
The more the modern approaches this
more and more will civilization be influenced
art is
in its purpose
no mystic cult,
only the care of a people
We have no religious retreats, but arenas,
and our assembly is not the mystical gloom
of a cathedral, but brightness and light
mystically-minded steal
art,
works of culture, positive facts,
speak louder than any
we can speak of a new awakening
of our cultural life,
which finds its confirmation
not in mutual compliments
and literary phrases, but
in positive evidences
of cultural creative force
architecture, sculpture, painting,
drama, and the rest bring proof
of a creative period in art,
which for richness and impetuosity
has rarely been matched
in the course of human history
try to turn these facts upside down,
we know that cultural achievements
will have won respect and appreciation
far more than the material
have no doubt
that creative work,
since it is
the most sensitive
expression of a talent,
cannot be understood,
far less appreciated,
by individuals
who are not the same
make art
it is a proclamation
of body and spirit
it does not make
propaganda
for an individual work,
for the subject,
or for the artist;
it makes propaganda
for the world
which confronts us
and so art will announce and herald
that common mental attitude,
that common view of life,
because these can meet
with understanding
only if it reveals in itself
the true essence of the spirit
The mystic narrowness
and gloom of the cathedrals
began to recede and,
to match the free life of the spirit,
buildings became spacious
and flooded with light
mystical twilight gave way
before increasing brightness
freedom of the soul and of the will,
for centuries, opened the way
to new forms of expression
and artistic creation
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