The Lost and Destroyed Art in WW2

Looking back to the class where we looked into the western cannon of art, one painting made me think more then the others. The stonebreakers, a painting by Gustave Courbet, is a painting made during the late 19th century. It depicts a father working as a stone breaker, a gruelling job with little pay and few prospects. The harsh lighting of the painting shows the sun bearing down on him. His son is standing behind him, symbolizing the fact his fathers job will be continued by him; it's a circle of life that will keep him poor. This painting, like many others, was destroyed during the second world war.

The Stone Breakers, Courbet. 1850 Destroyed with 154 other paintings when the truck transporting them to a castle in Konigsberg was bombed by Allied planes.

We know of it because of photographs, but the original was lost long ago. It's saddening to think a painting important enough to be shown to students in an introductory course on art history couldn't be preserved, but then again, the conflict it was lost in was a very destructive and harsh one. Thinking of all the people who lost their lives in the war is a terrible thought. The loss of art however, is just as bad; people come and go, but one of the only ways to piece together our past is through art, architecture and the design of everyday objects (with the other way being historical accounts through old books.) Losing paintings means losing a page of man's past. Thankfully, a lot of the art that has been destroyed in the last 100 years has been documented, and we can still see a glimpse of its stature.

When Germany invaded europe, and took over the majority of it, Hitler created a list of works of art he wanted. He was building a museum, the Fuhrermuseum, and he wanted the best examples of German art  in it. He ordered the looting of museums across France and the low countries. The art pieces that were thought to have value to the Nazi party were sent to several locations, to be catalogued by art historians and sent to Berlin. Those that didn't were sold on the international art market. Those that weren't sold were destroyed in bonfires like the one in the gardens of the galerie national du jeu de Paume in 1942, where several painitings from prominent artists like Picasso, Dali, Ernst, Klee, Leger and Miro were lost.

 As the war turned sour and Fascist Italy fell, the Germans, under the pretext of 'preserving' art, looted the museums of Italy and sent all the art back to the German mainland. A large amount of the art was found in salt mines across Germany... they were just humid enough to preserve the art and would be protected from the bombing.

This famous photograph shows President Eisenhower, Omar Bradley and General Patton looking at art found in the Salt mine in Merkers

How much of the art didn't make it out of the war? It's hard to tell since there are still works of art that are unaccounted for today. They could have been destroyed since the war, or they could be hiding in an unsuspecting persons attic. The Clark Photograph and Clippings Archive has an account on Flickr documenting the art pieces lost or destroyed during World War 2. While most of the works that are still lost are China and everyday objects, there are still paintings too.

You can take a look at the list of art works, their creators, the year of their destruction and how at this link.

While being the largest act of artistic destruction during the 20th century, it wasn't the only one. Since then, art has been destroyed because of fire, accident, or because of terrorist attack (the September 11th attacks destroyed works of Picasso, Lichtenstein and a tapestry from Miro, one of only two he ever made.) There have been a few instances when art has been destroyed simply because people found it 'ugly.' Richard Serra's Tilted Arc was removed from a New York park in 1989 for this reason.

The JMEC Gallery

Hello! So I've been quite busy this week so that would explain the reason why it took me so long to update the blog! Hopefully what I have today will make up for the fact you guys had to wait so much. So it's been a while since I've created anything creative. The last real effort I made is the 60's suburban house we had to design for a class on Frank Lloyd Wright which I might post up here later in the year. Some of you may know that me and my friends (ironically, the same one's I was with when making the Frank Lloyd Wright house) started a company last semester, and are now making concrete steps into making a real business. It's an exciting time and there's a lot of hope. The people I'm working with are incredibly dedicated and have helped me a lot with this and with other things ver the last year, so having them as partners is great. Since I'm the one who can get around Adobe products, it was my job to make the initial ad trying to get students to join. I'm very pressed for time, since I'm working and taking a bunch of classes, so i wanted to make a work that was easy to create and wouldn't look cheap or ridiculous on a board beside the work of bonafied art students...

Originally I was planning on having no image at all, but while I was bringing a friend home from work last week, she explained to me that I need to have a picture to interest people. She knew what the original plan for the ad was and helped me through some of the design elements, like the fact that it should be placed in the form of a Z, since that's how we read a book. The logo shouldn't be dead centre like I planned on making either... it should be on the side. In all, I ended up taking all her comments into consideration, and while she told me to just add a cartooney looking frame with a question mark in the middle backed by an easel, I thought that... realistically I can do better, and if I'm going to have a drawing up there, I want to be proud of it.

In the end I ended up making the ad that same night, and the french version was made a few days later. I spent many hours on the work... but I tried to keep it as simple as possible. I kept the papers I drew on making the piece, I the hopes that someone following in my footsteps can be inspired in some way or get something out of my experience. I'll post some pictures below and the steps I took making it.

The Logo

Some of the different logos I drew up

The first and most obvious thing laking in our company was the logo. The name for the company was thought up about a week before, being a mesh of Jean Marc, Eunice and Chris. It's an elegant solution. The original plan was the draw a rectangle simulating a painting, with the logo written on the bottom right, like an artist's signature. My friend Sarah (the friend I work with) suggested I keep the box open, and not close it, so the logo morphed into this. Before this page was made, I also thought of making the logo in a diamond shaped square too but the L shape worked the best.


















Template

The Ad Template with the original drawing idea

I got the inspiration for my ad from one from a creuset ad I saw on the back of last month's Ricardo Magazine. The drawing is the original idea.. and after looking at the drawing for a little while I decided against it. 

The Living Room

The living room sketch became what  the ad was, I wanted it to have more of a 3d feel then the final product, but with the font I found it looked like an  ad from the 80's, so I was happy. In this drawing, the plan was to make a group of 3 dimensional 'bathroom men'  (that's what I call 'em because I have no idea what the real term is) having a great afternoon surrounded by potential art they bought form us. meh. It also helped me figure out the perspectives. I knew I wanted a 2-point perspective since that becomes more interesting to see and realistic, but it took me like 8 different drawings to get to what I wanted which brings me to...

The Drawing!

Ok so I had 2 points where all the lines went when making the drawing, and everytime I made one thing, I would create a bunch of lines stemming from these points, and converging to make the objects I wanted. It was easy, once I got the perspective right, it just took some time, and it also made my drawing very box like. The only thing that didn't follow the rigid structure was the book on top of the other one in the table... I had to make a whole new perspective for that.. but it makes the whole drawign a bit more realistic. 

The Final Product

The ending was't nearly as ambitious as i would've liked. Since I wanted to create it as quick as possible I couldn't include anything that was rounded or not cube shaped essentially. The advantage is that the end drawing looked simple; it wasn't busy and so it attracts people more. The french version of the ad was a nightmare as far as grammer goes. Thankfully Eunice knows french well and was able to translate everything for me.. but it took me a while to figure out that gallery is with one l in french and means shopping center. You need to indicate art in there or else it makes no sense. :\

... and there you go! So that's it for today's post. My next ad is hopefully going to be a little more ambitious. Maybe an isometric drawing? We'll see. I'm going to the auto show tommorow and it should be a lot of fun! Take care and have a good week.

P.S. I realize the post is screwed up for some reason... I'll fix it at a later time.