(21 Nov 2015) LEAD IN:
An exhibition tracing the impact on art of National Socialism and World War II has opened in Berlin.
"The Black Years" exhibition at the Hamburger Bahnhof Museum features both art that was created in opposition to the Nazi regime, and pieces the party promoted.
The former was labelled "degenerate", while others were held up as examples of "Great German art".
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This tense painting, showing a drummer in a dark room surrounded by naked figures, hangs at the entrance to "The Dark Years" exhibition in Berlin.
It acts as a symbol for the whole exhibition, tracing art under the National Socialist regime and the Second World War.
The artist, Karl Hofer, created the painting in 1943, as Europe was burning but before the full scale of the Nazi campaign had become apparent.
It was created as a small act of defiance.
In an earlier painting Hofer had used a drummer to represent Adolf Hitler.
In this painting, the drummer takes on a tragic feature, the drumming is desperate and the onlookers menacing - one can almost sense the war, killings and persecutions.
The exhibition includes 60 works fitting into at least one of four categories.
They were either created during the National Socialist regime, were deemed degenerate by the Nazis, were created in opposition to the regime or were used by the Nazis for propaganda purposes.
"We will see if it is controversial, but I hope that it will create discussion," says curator Dieter Scholz.
"We are showing this as an art exhibition but with a very strong historical aspect."
The area with paintings and sculptures that were deemed as "degenerate" by the National Socialist regime includes expressionist masterpieces like "Studio Corner" by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner.
The colourful, almost light-hearted painting was confiscated twice; first by the National Socialists, and shown in the infamous degenerate art exhibition in Munich in 1937.
After the war the painting was once again confiscated, this time by the occupying Soviet military who kept it until the German unification.
"Teltow II" by Lyonel Feininger and "Fishermen in the Surf" by Ernst Wilhelm Nay are two other - seemingly innocent - paintings that fell foul of the Nazis.
On the other side of the room, a forest scene was labelled "Great German art" by the party.
"The Fichtel Mountains" by Georg Schrimpf depicts a colourful, lush forest with a mountain in the background - it clearly depicted what the National Socialists saw as perfect German countryside.
But the seemingly arbitrary way that the National Socialists chose which art was "degenerate" and which was "great" is best symbolised by two sculptures - both created by the same artist.
"Triad" by Rudolf Belling is a wooden sculpture from 1919, the National Socialists clearly did not like its undefined structure and labelled it degenerate and sent it to the Munich exhibition.
While a bronze sculpture by Belling, showing the German boxer Max Schmeling was lauded by the regime. It was included in a "Great German Art" exhibition.
"The term 'degenerate art' is not really specified by the National Socialists - it contained many different dimensions," explains Scholz.
"It was used for art made by Jewish artists, their work was called degenerate. But there was also stylistic reasons, like when the art was abstract or expressionist. And the third reason was the political dimension. Works from artists that were socialists, communists or anarchists in the Weimar Republic were also confiscated."
Picasso painted it two years after Hitler's army invaded the French capital.
These days were indeed black.
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