Art in Nazi Germany

Heroic art, or Nazi heroic realism is a style of propaganda art associated with Nazi Germany. 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. According to Nazi thinking, Heroic Art symbolized racially pure art, free from distortion and corruption, while modern styles deviated from the prescribed norm of classical beauty. According to this theory, "racially pure" artists produced racially pure art, and modern artists of an inferior racial strain produced works which were contorted: so-called Degenerate Art. 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.

Nazi Heroic Art bears a close similarity to the Communist propaganda art style of Socialist Realism, and the term heroic realism is used to describe both artistic styles.

Among the well known artists of the Heroic Art style, endorsed by the Nazis, there are sculptors Josef Thorak and Arno Breker, and painters Werner Peiner, Adolf Wissel and Conrad Hommel.

External links

• Nazi Approved Art
• Nationalsocialist Realism
• Nazi Political Art
• Nazi War Art: 1940-1944
• Nazi Military Paintings

See also

• Heroic realism