“It is not the mission of art,” the Führer proclaimed to the assembled crowd in September 1935, “to wallow in filth for filth’s sake, to paint the human being only in a state of putrefaction, to draw cretins as symbols of motherhood, or to present deformed idiots as representatives of manly strength.”
The Guardian has an excellent article on how extreme Ntionalistic societies view art, with particular reference to the Third Reich and Hitler’s (a failed painter himself) perspective on art.
Why do I feel that this is exactly the way the right-wingers think in India? Why do I feel that this is what will be said if Modi comes to power? Why do I feel that the muscular mother India will be the only ‘approved’ image, and that patriotism will overshadow every ‘legitimate’ expression of emotion? Why am I scared, and not just for the artists?
