Talk:Arno Breker/Archive 1

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In the german article it says 90% of his work was destroyed by the Allies, not ´lost´. Where lies the truth? Alex 10.07.06
 * Well, this is mainly a question of perspective. The Allies systematically destroyed a lot of German and European culture, e.g. most historical inner cities (while they did not or hardly bomb the huge part of military industry that was US-owned, e.g. factories of IG Farben, Ford and Opel (General Motors)) and until today they still keep Germany under occupation law. So it does not really make a difference.
 * I own the book "Arno Breker - A Life for the Beautiful" by Dominique Egret, ISBN 3-87847-157-2. It says that most of Breker's works were destroyed systematically by the Allies. 87.123.53.155 16:33, 30 September 2006 (UTC)


 * The statistic is derived from an interview he gave in the 1979. It's obviously an approximation, and in context it's clear that he is referring to his public sculptures. Your comments about allied bombing are absurd. Paul B 16:36, 30 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Many thanks for the link to the interview. But I can assure you that what I wrote above is, as far as I can tell after years of (private) study on the newer history of Germany, accurate and only the tip of an iceberg. On some levels of abstraction you can see a straight line between nearly all wars that the US (or the Wall Street?) ever did, including even the US civil war, up to the war against Iraq and the possible war against Iran. There exist many quotes by Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt and other leading politicians of the Allies that WWII mainly wasn't a war against Hitler, but a war against Germany. This is why Roosevelt asked Germany for "unconditional surrender", not for the disempowerment of Hitler or the Nazis. GB and the US (plus other states, mainly France) also actively supported Poland in creating the situation that made Hitler feel that he had to attack Poland, what started WWII. But thick books have been written on subjects like these, it is required to get very deeply into details to decide if my claims are correct and this is not the right place to discuss that, so you might want to look up the details yourself. 87.123.34.51 09:57, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
 * What you are saying is obscene. You are clearly a Nazi sympathiser, or at the very least an insane revisionist.  I note that you don't have the courage to sign in as an identifiable user.  Not surprising, because if you were to be located in Germany or many other European countries your ideas and opinions would be criminal offences.--Corinthian 19:53, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Your arguement would be a lot stronger if you signed your posting. Carptrash 20:13, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
 * What is most exciting for me about wikipedia is that it is, among things, a collection of folks who have also put years of study into various topics. Why don't you consider registering so that this conversation can take place a a better level.  My stack of books on Breker has disappeared [I just moved] while I was trying to figure out copyright issues of stuff published during the Third Reich.  You have some interesting ideas, so please consider registering.  Carptrash 19:42, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

I've seen a lot of references to a friendship between Salvador Dalí, Ernst Fuchs and Breker, that might be worth mentioning. Breker sculpted a bust of Dalí, Fuchs wrote a book praising Breker, and in the 1970s Dalí even wrote a manifesto of sorts, with lines like "We are the GOLDEN TRIANGLE: Dali – Breker – Fuchs". --Delirium 09:20, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
 * You will find only references made by Joe F. Bodenstein! He is the owner of the "museum-arno-breker" located in his house, the owner the publisher "Marco-Edition" in Bonn, founder the "European Art Foundation", owner of "PROMETHEUS, Internet Bulletin for Art, Politics and Science" etc, etc... all instruments to promote Arno Breker. Joe F. Bodenstein is the copyright-holder of all rights from Breker. 217.232.60.67 (talk) 20:32, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure what you are trying to say. How is it relevant to this article? Paul B (talk) 21:06, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Was Arno Becker mainly a "modeler" or stone carver sculptor?
Arno Beckers politics aside.Always wondered if he was more a Clay modeler then a direct stone carver sculptor>Thanks! Teslaedsonfan (talk) 04:41, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Modeler. Carptrash (talk) 18:10, 9 September 2017 (UTC)

Yes, but Is It Art?
There doesn't seem to be any discussion on this point, which is a valid and rather important one. Aside from his personal ideological beliefs and his Nazi party membership, Breker's sculpture strikes me personally as totalitarian kitsch, with a strong homoerotic undercurrent. What do others think?


 * You find it homoerotic because you have a homosexual undercurrent in your own mind. It is no more homoerotic than ancient Roman ones.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.134.127.91 (talk) 08:50, 11 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Personally, I think "totalitarian kitsch" is a meaningless concept, but I grant you that similar terms are used by some critics, stemming from post war literature such as Sontag's essay Fascinating Fascism. Art historians have reacted against this type of criticism of late, and the attribution of homoeroticism to male nudes of this period is also problematic, given the cultural context. But I also grant you that critics who suggest this can be found. If you want to add them, find them. Paul B (talk) 08:58, 1 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your comments, Paul. If you think that "totalitarian kitsch" is a meaningless concept (I thought I made it up!), then how would you characterize Soviet and Nazi and Fascist art and architecture which is generally thought of as not being of very high quality?


 * It's just the combination of two unrelated concepts. We don't speak of specifically "democratic kitsch" or "monarchical kitsch", just kitsch. Breker's sculptures are similar to works by other sculptors of the time who made neo-classical nudes inflected by Art Deco stylistic traits. It was quite a common trend internationally in the 20s and 30s. If want to call it kitsch, that's a legitimate value judgement, but it's an opinion. If we want to add evaluations of Breker's art we need to source them to art critics. Paul B (talk) 00:56, 8 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your intelligent explanation, Paul. I appreciate it, and your point is well taken.  Still, I have always wondered what it is that "totalitarian" art or sculpture or architecture (be it Soviet, Nazi, or Fascist) have in common, and they DO seem to have something in common. Bombastic monumentality? A special brand of post-Historicist classicism?  A mythology of das Volk, das Land? The wish to violently overpower the looker? An art that is somehow 'anti-art' because it denies the individual?? All this and more is what I mean when I talk about "Totalitarian Kitsch", and I still feel there's some justification for that term.  (Of course it's a value judgment, a condemnation in fact, a denial that that art HAS value.)


 * Art Deco, the "oceanliner style" - to return to Breker - borders on Kitsch itself for me (though not democratic or monarchical Kitsch, as you say!) Dufy is a kind of grand exception here of course....


 * By the way, Breker seems to have been a decent man personally, and there are rumors that he intervened with the Nazi leadership to protect Picasso, among others....


 * I have no intention of adding anything to the article itself, not being an expert. I'm just looking for education, for clarification on certain things, and, having lived in Germany for 20 years, I was often confronted with the name Breker.  And speaking of citations, which are of course necessary for Wikipedia, I would like to know just WHERE Maillol called Breker "the German Michelangelo"!  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 169.229.139.9 (talk) 00:14, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Assessment comment
Substituted at 08:16, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

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The inscription under the image is wrong. It says it is "Die Partei" statue but it is not.
--Reciprocist (talk) 12:07, 9 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Looking through, Zavrel John B., Arno Breker: His Art and Life, Biography by Volker G. Probst, West-Art, Amherst, New York, 1983, it appears that the work in question might be one of his Prometheus series, but it is hard to tell. Let's keep looking. Einar aka Carptrash (talk) 17:52, 9 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I have had a difficult (i.e. "impossible") time trying to track down copyright procedures for books published i Nazi Germany, but let me try these two pictures for starters. The copy right patrol might show up and remove them, so act with haste. I think it is a different statue than the lede one. I am sorry that I neglected to flip the one picture - this is straight out of my scanner. Carptrash (talk) 18:23, 9 September 2017 (UTC)
 * OK, I'm very confused between "Die Partei" and "The Great Torchbearer". Are these two names for the same statue, or two somewhat similar, but different, statues, with different angles for the outstretched arm? The information I've seen is... well, confusing. Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:26, 13 September 2019 (UTC)