* Julie Lelièvre * * * Research paper: * Der Blaue Reiter and the Degenerate art exhibition. * * * Cover of the Blaue Reiter almanac, W. Kandinsky, 1911 Poster for the degenerate art exhibition, from Otto Freundlich, Der neue Mensch

At the beginning of the XXth, Germany was one of the strongest economical, military and diplomatic powers in the world. The country wanted to expand its boundaries by the way of colonization and develop its business, and was thus very opened on the world. During this rich period, German art was blossoming. The artists became aware of the international modern art and started to think about the meanings and the diversity of representations. The most famous trend of this time was Expressionism, where the artists tried to express their opinions about German industrialization, taking a leaf out of primitive art. The second degree was then a whole reflection on abstraction and its consequences. In this artistic scene, one of the major figures is Wassily Kandinsky, whose one of the best accomplishments was the creation of the Blaue Reiter, a group of artist promoting, in summary, diversity and spirituality in art. This movement died with World War one as well as German power. The vicious circle, of both the bad economy and the hatred created by the Versailles Diktat, led to the accession to power of Adolf Hitler, under the banner of the Nazi party. Among a lot of atrocities, his government implemented a struggle against modern art, and more particularly against the pre-war German art, also called German avant-garde.
In this paper, I’ll try to back up the following thesis: the call for spirituality and diversity in art of the Blaue Reiter movement in the German 1910’s is described as insane by the Nazi state 20 years later through the “Degenerate art exhibition”, and this evolution shows us that the totalitarianism needs to unify and control the culture so as to implement its