The Arts: General Issues

Portraits, book reviews, world news, commentary and reportage from the editor of the New Yorker

The ambitious, riveting story of Hitler's obsession with art, how it fueled his vision of a purified Nazi state, and the fate of the artwork that was hidden, stolen, or destroyed to cleanse German culture The story of art is integral to the story of the rise of Nazi Germany. Adol...f Hitler, an artist himself, was obsessed with art--in particular, the aesthetic of a purified regime, scoured of degenerate influences that characterized Germany during the 1920s and 1930s, when it was more culturally innovative and daring than anywhere else in the word. The Germany of Cabaret, hyperinflation, and Rosa Luxemburg was a society in turmoil, and among those who reveled in the discord were a generation of artists from George Grosz to Helmut Hertzfeld to Hannah Hoch for whom art was a political weapon. They were fierce, inspired, and rebellious, but to Hitler, they were anathema. When they came to power in 1933, Hitler and Goebbels set their aesthetic vision into motion and removed degenerate art from German life: Grosz and his family fled to America; museums were purged; and great works disappeared, only a fraction of which were rediscovered at the end of the Second World War. Most remained in garrets and cellars, the last hostages of the era of the Reich. In 2014, 1290 works by Chagall, Picasso, Matisse, Otto Dix, Max Beckmann and others were rediscovered. In Hitler's Last Hostages, Mary Lane brilliantly tells the story of art and the Third Reich, and the fate of Germany's great era of artists as they fought to survive the Nazi era.
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Have you ever longed to be able to draw or paint, write or compose music? With The Artist's Way you can discover how to unlock your latent creativity and make your dreams a reality. With the basic principle that creative expression is the natural direction of life, Julia Cameron ...leads you through a comprehensive 12-week program to recover your creativity from a variety of blocks, including limiting beliefs, fear, self-sabotage, jealousy, guilt, addictions and other inhibiting forces, replacing them with artistic confidence and productivity. This book links creativity to spirituality by showing how to connect with the creative energies of the universe. The Artist's Way provides a twelve-week course that guides you through the process of recovering your creative self. It dispels the 'I'm not talented enough' conditioning that holds many people back and helps you unleash your own inner artist. Its step-by-step approach will enable you to: start out on your own path to creativity, dissolve the barriers that prevent your creative impulse from finding expression, use your rediscovered talents in whatever way you wish, learn that it is never too late to start fulfilling your dreams. The Artist's Way helps demystify the creative process by making it part of your daily life. It tackles your self-doubts, self-criticism and worries about time, money and the support to pursue your creative dream. It has already helped thousands of people to uncover their hidden talents - it can help you, too.
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Through a consideration of how we have come to perceive art crime and the gendered language associated with its documentation, this pioneering study questions why women have been left out of the discourse to date and how, by looking specifically at women, we can gain a more compl...ete picture of art crime history.
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When you are feeling creative, you never want to be without a sketch pad to jot down your inspirations. This journal gives you 100 blank pages to draw, sketch, doodle or whatever.