Two Against the World by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, 1924.Dystopian authors such as Aldous Huxley and Geo
Two Against the World by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, 1924.Dystopian authors such as Aldous Huxley and George Orwell proposed that the greatest threat to a totalitarian system would be romantic love.In Brave New World, children are inculcated with the belief that all bodies belong to everyone. Sex is not allowed to be a form of intimacy. Instead, it serves as a means for reinforcing the prevailing social order.For the same reason, sex is repressed in Orwell’s 1984: relationships create private loyalties, which ferment rebellion and weaken loyalties to the state.Conflict frequently turns up as a theme in Kirchner’s paintings. Sometimes he depicts inner struggles while, in other works, his interest is a perceived battle between personal freedom and a staid, suffocating environment.For Kirchner, there is already a totalitarianism of conformity lurking underneath the veneer of western civilization. Creators and lovers have to be against the world to survive in this hostile society.How would Kirchner fit in a state controlled by national socialists? Well, you can guess the answer.In 1933, the Nazis branded his art as degenerate. In 1937, they destroyed or sold off 600 his paintings.In 1938, Kirchner died in front of his house from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He was 58. -- source link
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