Painters and sculptors under the Nazis often depicted the nude, but they were forbidden to show any bodily imperfections. Their nudes look like pictures in physique magazines: pinups which are both sanctimoniously asexual and (in a technical sense) pornographic, for they have the perfection of a fantasy.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- Nazi-era art showed perfect, sanitized nudes, avoiding flaws to align with ideological ideals of perfection.
- In plain terms
- Artists under the Nazis were forbidden to show imperfections in nudes, making them look like fantasy pinups.
- What can you take from it?
- Ideology can force art to hide human flaws to create false ideals.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- How does censorship affect artistic truth?
- Why do regimes idealize human forms?
Another view
The quote simplifies Nazi art to only this aspect, ignoring other styles.
More from Susan Sontag
The truth is that Mozart, Pascal, Boolean Algebra, Shakespeare, parliamentary government, baroque churches, Newton, the emancipation of women, Kant, Marx, and …
Permalink to quote #4 In contrast to the asexual chasteness of official communist art, Nazi art is both prurient and idealizing. A utopian aesthetics (physical perfection; identity …
Permalink to quote #6 The truth is always something that is told, not something that is known. If there were no speaking or writing, there would be no truth about anything. There wo…
Permalink to quote #3
Related quotes
We had a dim premonition that power-mad gangsters would one day use art itself as a way of deadening men's minds.
Hans ArpHans Arp quote #1 This is not a book. This is libel, slander, defamation of character. This is not a book, in the ordinary sense of the word. No, this is a prolonged insult, a g…
Henry MillerHenry Miller quote #1 Everything about Florence seems to be coloured with a mild violet, like diluted wine.
Henry JamesHenry James quote #2