Just because the Fuhrer was a monster, it doesn’t make his paintings evil, argues ross clark |
 |
|
|
The enfants terribles of modern art could only dream of being the subject of such scorn as was heaped upon the 21 watercolours by Adolf Hitler auctioned in Lostwithiel, Cornwall, this week. "These paintings are truly awful," ventured one amateur art critic. "He wanted to be a painter, but had no talent. The result was one of the occasions the Devil truly did show his face on Earth."
Perhaps the critic really was moved to disgust at the sight of the Church at Preux-au-Bois shimmering in winter sunlight. More likely his distaste for the watercolours (such as that depicting Laon, France, right) only developed because he knew the reputed identity of the painter.
The reality is that on the basis of these paintings the Fuhrer was a perfectly competent amateur artist, possibly even |
|
 |
 |
|
| If failure to make great art went hand-in-hand with a tendency towards genocide, the world would be awash with mass-murderers |
|
|
|
a moderately talented one. We sneer at them not because we genuinely think them rubbish but because it makes us feel better to think that the killer of six million Jews must have been a talentless individual entirely devoid of artistic sensibilities or, indeed, any human qualities whatsoever.
In our minds he is pure demon. The possibility that he could have sat at his easel alongside Granddad and turned out an agreeable watercolour is too awful for us to contemplate, for it would make us ask whether the possibility of evil lurks deep inside us all.
If a failed ambition to produce great art really did go hand-in-hand with a tendency towards genocide, the world would be so awash with murderers that we would all be slain long before we reached adulthood. Thankfully, it doesn't. The fact is that Adolf Hitler's artistic career followed the same trajectory of those of tens of thousands of perfectly ordinary people who have failed at the easel, and gives us absolutely no explanation for his subsequent deeds. 
FIRST POSTED OCTOBER 2, 2006
 Turner prize contenders go on show
|
