At the Mucha exhibit I thought I spotted an Art Nouveau poster in which Alphonse depicts a man instead of his usual idealized flowy-haired woman but it turned out it the poster was of Sarah Bernhardt dressed as a man.
The docent said that Sarah B and A. Mucha had a purely professional relationship, and I believe I said “Sure …” I might have thought, “Sure, Bernhardt slept with every other talented man in Europe except for the artist for whom she posed for hours on end. Sure.”
The docent shared some more of Mucha’s history, including what the Nazis thought of him, and that was that his art was …” And then she stopped. I said, “I know what you are going to say; it starts with a ‘D’.”
“That’s exactly it,” she answered, “We are thinking of the same word. It’s Deeeeeeee — “
“Deeeeeeee …” I chimed in, clutching my head. “Deeeeeee … ”
“Degenerate,” added a strange man standing four feet away. I will never forget this man, this kind man, so generous with information it surpassed his reticence, who regrettably will forever be known to my heart as Degenerate Man, because he vanished in to the crowd immediately after.
I realized later I might know the term “Degenerate,” but not why the Nazis classified some art as degenerate.
All I know of Degenerate art is that my favorite piece previously housed at the Saint Louis Art Museum was “Geste et parole ” by Dubuffet, and it was also labelled Degenerate by the Nazis.
So both the above and below are Degenerate.
On further reading (of Wikipedia, let’s not kid ourselves) I found the answer: degenerate art is simply modern art. Both of the above examples are stylized, non-representational, modern art. Art “Nouveau”, not Art “Same Old Same Old”.
Some forward-thinkers might like the new style of art but the populace can’t understand it. So the powers that be say it’s degenerate.
Has the US gotten there yet? It looks like President Trump is busy enough editing actual history to bother with the techniques used to represent history.