Around Hindenburg, a group of headless bureaucrats in formal attire sit at the table—figures of authority, politicians, who have surrendered independent thought, blindly following orders from the real power players: the industrialists and financiers. One such well-fed industrialist wearing a top hat firmly in place, leans in to whisper in the president’s ear. Under his arm, he clutches small weapons and a miniature train This is the military-industrial complex profiting from war and economic turmoil.
In the foreground, a donkey wearing blinders stands precariously on a board tied to a skeleton, its face turned toward a feeding trough full of papers. The blinders are decorated with the German eagle. The symbolism is clear – the donkey represents the German people who are blindly consuming the fodder put in the trough before them.
Meanwhile, in the lower right, a prisoner peers out from behind bars, his face barely visible beneath the table where the headless officials rest their feet. Power and privilege, it seems, are built on the backs of the oppressed.
Towering over it all is the eclipsed sun, its light blocked by a dollar sign—a not-so-subtle jab at the overwhelming influence of American finance in Germany’s struggling economy after World War I. In Grosz’s bleak vision, money overshadows morality, and those in charge are either complicit or too blind to see where things are headed.
Where are the women?
Degenerate art makes for a biting critique. No wonder the Nazis were soon to start condemning it.
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I see alarming parallels as I think many of have been for some time, yet there are just as many who either don't or won't see them. Can the insanity be stopped or must we ride it out to the bitter end?
I’m not sure I can express it properly but it seems to that today so many people are dissatisfied with some aspect of their life and feel the need to blame someone else, ‘the Government’, the immigrants, the political elite, those living a life of luxury on State benefits etc. Hitler blamed the Jews, the Allies for their reparations, the Bolsheviks for denying Germany lebensraum etc., and connected to the German people’s unhappiness. Today we have Trump, Musk and right wing European political parties shouting out that it is the fault of others and offering easy sounding solutions that appeal to the dissatisfied. Their easy solutions to complex problems won’t work, but that doesn’t matter. They will either say they are working despite all evidence to the contrary or they will say that the failure is due to the resistance put up by ‘the problem group’ and it will work if we all allow their actions to be more and more extreme. The ‘problem’ is dehumanised and so immigrants, Federal employees and opposition politicians cease to be people in the same way as ‘Jews’ stopped being children, mothers, fathers, talented, caring, loving or even ordinary and just became a symbol of what needed to be ‘cleansed’. Let’s hope we don’t finish up too far down that road.
You dont necessarily have to know art history, which will already have undergone someone else's interpretation! Ironically.
I would say history repeats itself because the perpetrators have developed the idea that they can get away with it..without realising that history repeats its for them too.
Perhaps it's also a factor of the fact that - while history rolls along and technology changes -human nature does not so much. We are still the grubbing cave dwellers only now some of us have shiny dangerous toys and can act out on the world stage..
Artifice Artificial Artful and none of it in a good way.
Alliteration's awful art acutely awesome and annoying!
You said already what I was going to say about historical recurrences; is simple stupidity to blame, or an inherent inability?
Greed, incompetence derived from motivations of greed, and a narcissist pleasure in the discomfort of others together with the opportunities that chaos provides for self-advancement, agrandissement, reckless disregard for others, destruction of the established social order, and more greed.
I would say ...Greed and being egotistical enough to think you can get away with it . Nope mate, i would say, the world has its circle.
So many extraordinary paintings in this exhibit. This was certainly a standout, a real coup for Huntington, its permanent home. The Galerie really should have done a much better job with the lighting, though. No matter where one stood, there was glare. Given the dollar sign ambience of this museum, there really is no excuse. Just the same, a brilliant exhibit.
Grosz lived in Huntington for twelve years. This is what the Heckscher Gallery says :
"Grosz brought Eclipse of the Sun (Sonnenfinstemis in German) to America, but after his death the painting was believed to be lost. In the late 194Os, the painting came into the possession of housepainter Thomas Constantine, who had it rolled up in his Long Island garage for years. When finally rediscovered, it was shown at the Harbor Gallery in Cold Spring Harbor.... a local fund-raising effort to purchase the painting for the Museum’s collection. More than 213 local residents, school children, and even then Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller contributed to the cause. The painting was purchased in 1968 for $15,000" https://www.heckscher.org/5048-2/
If only Elon wore a top hat!
This even looks like a bloated version of him. And we all know Musk has the US armaments industry under his crooked arm.
Thanks so much for explaining the symbolism of this painting, Josie. It's fascinating but proves, if we didn't already know, history just keeps on repeating itself and we never learn.
When it comes to art history this applies to me:
"A little learning is a dangerous thing ;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring :
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again"
(Yes, I have been reading Pope this week, although not that.)
The painting is amazing though. And with a little help (i.e identifying Hindenburg) the symbolism is so strong it hits you over the head with a tyre iron.
And the parallels to 2025 ....
(And maybe: 'twas ever thus.)