Reading Sample – A Painter speaks

Art During War – 16 April 2025

When I started out as a young art student it was unimaginable to think of anything but a peaceful world. War seemed to be an
invention of Hollywood to announce the next Arnold
Schwarzenegger movie. But Oh boy! Times have changed!

Right now I think it is very important that we rediscover the
artists during the second world war who were not favored by the powerful. When we look at that time through the lens of the art historian we see this strange void. Everyone knows Riefenstahl, Speer, and so on. Those who were favoured by the powerful and oftentimes they made rather bland works offering nothing but
lies.

But what about those who actually documented the truth?

The everyday struggle of the commoner? The poverty and the circus of politics?

We needed decades to notice those artists who documented the truth of that time. Felix Nussbaum, Hans Grundig, George Grosz, Matsumoto Shunsuke,…

All of those painters had so much strength and empathy.
Looking back at their work we see that they are the ones who
came very close to the idea of a pure form of art, that is not just a commercial product. A painting as a document of someone who sacrificed their life in order to document the truth and art. What a sweet and forbidden thought.

Of course their works are still being hidden as they are victims of our society and we want to believe that we are never capable of doing evil ourselves. Still, I’ve been looking at those paintings and feel like the whole world is condensed within. Thinking about our own troublesome times now I can deeply relate to the despair and hopelessness of that era.

I do believe war nurtures great artists.