Debunked but not defeated.
Author: Victor Sirotin
Proof-reading: Lidia Pecherskaya
For TALANT | October 15, 2021
The most significant artists of the Third Reich are undoubtedly Arno Breker, Josef Thorak and perhaps the highly gifted monumentalist Joseph Wackerle. In terms of generalisation and superb stylisation of form Wackerle perhaps went further than Breker but, on the whole, he was still inferior to him and even more so to Josef Thorak. For this reason let us dwell on the first two.
Arno Breker.
The highly exuberant Arno Breker produced a number of important works of sculpture in a matter of years. As a great artist rather than an ideologist, Breker expressed his credo in art rather mildly: "depicting a humane and ideal conception of man".
And yet the master's work was too closely aligned with the ideas of the Party to be truly great. Almost everywhere Breker subordinated the theme not to the "ideal conception of man" but to the ideals of the NSDAP. Such were "The Party" and "The Army", the figures facing each other on the sides of the entrance to the Reich Chancellery. Both works were made in the image of naturally perfectly built young men. Truly, the tall relief of the "The Banner" was magnificent both in conception and execution. But while Breker's "Aryan" appearance was equally endowed with external (plastic) merit as it is internal, in the sculpture "The Superman" Breker was clearly working on a given theme.
By the way, almost always with Breker, the title of the work spoke for itself and the plastic symbols were exhausted by them. In most of Breker's sculptures the author's focus on one or another quality, which completely dominates all the others, if any at all, are clearly evident. In the works of the great master there are most often external beauty, pronounced strength, invincibility, and the desire to fight till the end without regard for any losses or sacrifices ("The Victim," "The Comrades," 1940). And that means fighting without sparing one's own or, all the more so, other people's lives. This was what the Party insisted on from every German wishing to move his Country closer to a "bright future", which meant extending the living space for the Germans. These are "The Call" (1939), "The Resolute", "The Triumph", "Towards the Goal", "The Third Reich". In "The Avenger" relief Breker picturesquely placed a warrior striking the serpent, the symbolic enemy of the Reich, with his sword.
Arno Breker. The Avenger. 1941
Meanwhile the magnificent sculpture “Alexander the Great” with an eagle at his feet blended seamlessly into the thematic company of German fighters. And no wonder. The ideologists of the Reich find a direct link between the modern German ideal and its ancient prototype. Germany, they believe, needed neither spiritual confusion nor digging into its own psychic emanations during the period of "rising from its knees" - something the post-World War I avant-garde activists of every hue and rank had enthusiastically pursued. Not so long ago defeated - now Germany needed a victory. And it could only be led by victors whose exploits on the peace front were hard work, diligent study, active participation in sports and other civic virtues.
Arno Breker. Alexander the Great
Very successfully fulfilling political and social orders Breker among many other allegories produced a statue “The Victor”. It is clear that this was not an "all-human" but the ideal German in all means. Breker's "The Victor" however was not only able to punish and conquer but also to be magnanimous, as can be seen in the appeasing movement of his arms, hunkered down to the ground.
Arno Breker. The Victor
Despite the very obvious "party attachment" Breker paid tribute to lyrical motifs in a number of his sculptures, which however did not stray too far from party directives either. These include “Victory”(1936), “You and Me”(1940), “Apollo and Daphne” and simply “Apollo”. In the relief "Farewell" we see similar Aryan patterns in which motifs of tenderness, love and loyalty can be seen. In addition to these morally pure qualities a number of Breker's works give rise to elegiac laments. These are: "Eos" (1939), "Grazia" (1937), "Psyche".
Breker must be praised: the female images he created are far more fascinating to the eye than his many "Reich fighters". For example, his female portrait “Iris”, an absolute masterpiece in marble, is as charming as highly professional. Although, as we know, female and especially maternal images not only did not contradict the "party line" but were a direct scan of it. It is well known what an important role was assigned to women in Germany - the guardian of the home. Deprived of masculine power which is natural Breker's female images "take their cue" through softness and femininity. However, it is not so easy to accuse the master of a particular attraction to the "maternal theme". In any case, it is not particularly evident in his best known works.
Arno Breker. Farewell
And yet for all his talent and technical prowess Breker often lacked the tact to endow his characters with more complex character traits. His Aryans, spiritually static and bellyaching, are too beautiful and their "superhumanity", far removed from the real man, gives his powerful images a moral uniqueness, a psychological dryness and a lifelessness. This leads their inhumanity. Breker's characters too often resemble handsome, athletic actors frozen in spectacular poses. The Hero's physical beauty, his muscular figure, broad shoulders, taut belly, protruded chin, frozen "manly" brow arches and hard piercing gaze constituted his characteristic set of elements from which Breker constructed the Aryan warriors.
But by paying too much attention to the surface of the form the sculptor crushed it depriving his work of plastic integrity. “The piece is perfectly worked... Everything is finished with amazing thoroughness,” said Aristide Maillol, not without irony, about one of Breker's sculptures when he met him in 1942. Breker's love to detail - à la Bernini - in a number of his works only flattens the form. In other words, Breker's form does not develop inwards but gravitates towards the surface of the sculpture. There it “gets stuck”. As the result, the movement when it is set in his sculpture does not grow from the depths of form. For this reason it often looks external and even theatrical.
The same is true of the portrait. If, for example, in the portrait of Richard Wagner Breker created a truly outstanding work, which is worthy of the great composer, then in the portrait of Speer Breker's taste was clearly betrayed. For instance, he unnecessarily enlarged the frontal area of the portrait's head. Since it was not present in life, there was no need to do it in the portrait. In general, fine taste was not a strong point of the sculptor, otherwise he would not be keen on excessively spectacular movements and external beauty of his "gods".
It seemed that Breker's attachment to the surface simply obliged him to be more psychological in his interpretation of the images but the master refused it in principle in favour of archaic impersonality. In monumental sculpture it is not only acceptable but also quite natural. But then, if we are to be consistent, we should pay less attention to the treatment of details which Breker never did. And after all, the detail in sculpture is a refined form. This means that the form, especially for monumental sculptures, remains dominant. In other words, any detail is subordinate to the form, just as the smaller is subordinate to the larger. Otherwise "form" ceases to be sculpture, all the more monumental. Breker's best works are free of poster symbols and commissioned "courage" but the desire to jump precisely out of the human image into the guise of the "new man" thereby dehumanising him can be traced in many of the sculptor's works.
Arno Breker. The Comrades
Josef Thorak.
Completely free from the previously mentioned weaknesses Josef Thorak is one of the greatest sculptors of the twentieth century.
Clearly inferior to Arno Breker in the acclaim of his contemporaries Thorak was clearly superior to his famous contemporary in his understanding of form, integrity and the principle of his powerful talent. The genius sculptor's images are filled with inner strength and true, not necessarily "Germanic", power. As much as his colleague was "on the subject" Thorak, by virtue of his enormous plastic power, transcended in his best works the level outlined by the "scepter" of the Führer and high-ranking "advisors" from the NSDAP. As if in a competition with one another, the two great masters managed to develop a new heroic and majestic style that embodied the aesthetics of German totalitarianism in striking images.
We have already mentioned Thorak’s works “The Family” and “Comradeship”located at the "legs" of the eagle at the 1937 World Exhibition. But the first outstanding work by the potter's son was the sculpture "The Dying Warrior" (1922) installed in Stollpymünde in memory of the German soldiers who died on the front lines of the First World War. As for the works exhibited at the World Exhibition in Paris in 1937, there is no beauty in them at all.
Josef Thorak. The Family and Comradeship
In his magnificent compositions Thorak in plastique and in a very convincingly way proclaimed the values on which the society is based the Country is supported and the State is anchored. For any strong social structure is based on moral foundations that are first and foremost shaped in the family. This is where the qualities that are exceptionally important for the building of the country and the prosperity of the Motherland are established. A good son cannot be a bad comrade, friend or father. Therefore, with regard to family and comradeship having no disagreement with the Party's insistence Thorak plastically defended and visibly asserted the importance of these qualities. Among other moral attributes friendship particularly cements the spiritual values of the Country. It is friendship that binds the Country and the State together.
Thorak literally put Strength, Beauty and Loyalty on a pedestal in his compositions. It is also because without comradeship there can be no society, no friendly family and no integral Country. Without it there can be no strong army and never a state. In his style affections as well as Breker's preference for monuments from ancient times, Thorak's images are genuinely powerful and purposeful. The great school of sculpture can be clearly seen in each and every one of the sculptor's works. But it had never been an end in itself for Thorak, a desire to "garde" with his skill or technique, as we see in many of the works of Arno Breker.
Among the statuary works (composed of several quite independent compositions) Thorak's “The Judgment of Paris” is magnificent including the image of Paris himself, as well as “Aphrodite”, “Hera” and “Athena” (1941). A work entitled “Danzig Freedom Monument” (1943) in which a warrior holding a sword is seen as identical with his weapon is exceptionally powerful. The subject of heroes and heroic deeds is portrayed in the multi-figured composition "Monument to Work" where powerful men are dragging a huge stone uphill.
By dedicating his project to the builders of autobahns Thorak glorified labour as it was but to an even greater extent as a feat of state-building . Here the author also seems to be "following in the footsteps" of the NSDAP. But by extolling the valour of hard work in a country struggling to emerge from disillusionment and depression Thorak was only encouraging the people to achieve the labour exploits to what the party was also calling for. Heroic involvement in the work of rebuilding the Country was something the German people was demanded and understood by them. For the extremely poor German way of life in the early 1930s could only be overcome if all forces were mobilised and work unity organised. Apparently, “the Thorak’s Stone” symbolised the burden that had to be borne by a German people driven into a corner by the consequences of the First World War. And the people, to the surprise of the rest of the world, within a few years pulled the heavy "boulder" out of the political swamp. Alas, it subsequently became a very dangerous tool in the hands of the National Socialists. But that is another story...
Monument to Work - a smaller version
Similar associations are evoked by Thorak's sculpture “Fighting the Centaur” in which a powerful man confronts a mythical character. At the same time, both works from a professional point of view are above all praise but they are alarming and frightening in their display of superhuman effort and perseverance. They are frightening because victory over the beast and the ascent of the lump are fraught with failure in all senses and meanings of the word. And above all in the sense that it “disrupts” one’s moral and ethical stability. The obvious advantage of strength is in power but power left in the spiritual orphanhood poses the greatest danger. In fact, the whole world soon had to be convinced of this.
The same power of internal order is exemplified in the sculptures of the Thorak’s horsemen- “The Swordsman” and “The Bannerbearer”.
Josef Thorak. The Swordsman
The two works, executed in the same plastic vein and close in meaning, exude a serenity and confidence. Both works are imbued with true majesty which is especially clear and convincing when one believes in the rightness of one’s mission. The horizontally placed sword and banner seem to "press" the space to the ground plane which magnifies the heroics of the images whose "axis" is strictly vertical. All this reinforcing the significance of the works gives them, in addition to the manifest, a potentially enormous power. Thorak's “Prometheus” is executed in a similar style but unlike Breker's Gods it is full of philosophical content. Prometheus, who gave people the gift of fire, knows that he will be punished but still making the personal sacrifice he gives them, as history has shown, a very dangerous weapon. Thorak's "The Boxer" embodies the power of the fighter mobilised not only into the ring but into life itself.
Josef Thorak Prometheus
Josef Thorak reaches the level of the sculptors of the ancient world in his best creations, adding to their supreme plastic prowess the anxiety of a New Age man. Meanwhile, we find many subtle lyrical works by Thorak the harbinger of strength and power. Notable among his early works is the extant park sculpture "Native Places"(1928). Among many others "Light" (1944), "Anneli reaching for the sky" (1943) should be mentioned. In one of his most heartfelt works “Two” (1941) Thorak presents types of spiritual people whose relationship stands in stark contrast to the voluptuous sex of the 1920s.
In the sculpture “Pietà” (1942) in which the body of Christ is held by several characters from the Bible, the master reaches the pinnacle of his work.
The composition was made in the middle of the war. It was not only the violence of Germany's proverbial goal but also its first defeats on the eastern front. At the time the Wehrmacht's hitherto invincible war machine was covered in blood and beginning to tread on the bones of both its own and foreign soldiers... In his composition Thorak was a great and honest artist probably trying to make a spiritual rethinking of what was happening in the world. In terms of its plastic merits his work is in no way inferior to the famous sculpture “Pietà” by Michelangelo, the only difference being that Thorak does not have the serene and in some ways even cold contemplation, which the great Italian gave to the image of Mary. Being a dramatist in sculpture, Thorak did not wish to be distracted by the "academic" finishing of the stone which, as we can guess, also had a sacred meaning for him. And in this his “stone” the master openly appealed to the plastic treasures of the Germanic Middle Ages including carved wood sculpture.
Unfortunately, most of the works by German monumentalists including, for sure, Arno Breker and Josef Thorak, were ruthlessly destroyed by the victors immediately after World War II. But even in reproductions the works of the great masters make a very strong impression. As for them themselves, то the outstanding sculptors were subjected to unrelenting persecution both by the authorities and by those who only a few years earlier had been hysterically enthusiastic about their Führers. Josef Thorak's last words are said to have been, "When will you all leave me alone?!".
Josef Thorak. Pietà
An extract from the author's unfinished book
“Two Countries, Two Aesthetics, Two Socialisms”