Degenerate Art in Nazi Domains: A Study of Nazi Censorship of Egon Schiele's Art

This article discusses the work of Austrian artist Egon Schiele (1890-1918) and the posthumous process of categorizing his work as degenerate in the context of the rise of Nazism, a period in which modern artists were persecuted in Europe and had their works confiscated, among other reasons, because their artwork did not fit the regime’s aesthetic ideal. Active in the Viennese art market at a time when the boundaries of creative processes were being reshaped by early modern artists, Egon Schiele’s art can be divided into two categories: one focused on portraits of Viennese high society and the other, in which he experimented with visual creations that mixed eroticism and the grotesque. Among the iconographic references used by the artist in this experimental period were photographs and illustrations of patients in psychiatric hospitals, present in widely circulated almanacs in the early 1910s. The article points out that the gestures present in such images were incorporated into the works of Egon Schiele, resulting in art objects that bordered on the grotesque. In connection with the public attention to images of psychiatric patients, this study also addresses how scientific theories were used by Nazism to compose a scientific justification for the intolerance and persecution that its government applied, including modern artists as enemies of Aryan culture. Based on the concept of degenerate art (Entartete Kunst), Nazism censored modern artists, removed their works from museums and collections, destroyed some of them, and promoted the illegal sale of countless works of art. To deepen knowledge about this part of European history, the article analyzed two important lists of works confiscated by the Nazis and, in this way, points out that Egon Schiele was categorized as a degenerate artist, despite the artist himself not being alive at the time of the events.

Keywords: Modern art; Nazism; Censorship; Degenerate art; Egon Schiele.