Jeez, that "Hitler Museum" sure is unbiased! I couldn't find any links to batshitinsane holocaust-denying revisionist websites. Oh no, wait, I could.
I feel dirty now.
posted by Biblio at 7:27 AM on July 16, 2006

His art is only marginally less hideous than his crimes against humanity.
posted by fire&wings at 7:32 AM on July 16, 2006

He was no [insert great artist here], but he wasn't completely incompetent. Better at drawing and painting than I'll ever be.

There are those who theorize that had Hitler been admitted into the Vienna art school when he applied, then the whole Nazi/Holocaust thing might not have happened.
posted by jaded at 7:44 AM on July 16, 2006

I don't think linking to hitler.org sets good precedent for metafilter. It is a front for hitler and nazi fanboys. Stormfront's images of the art were too small?

Hitler.org's high page rank means kids from everywhere use the "facts" presented there on their school reports.
posted by birdherder at 7:50 AM on July 16, 2006

I saw an exhibit of his paintings years ago, I think in Florence. I thought the most fascinating thing is that he never puts any people in his pictures.
posted by CunningLinguist at 7:56 AM on July 16, 2006

Oh, they're there. But you need to look in the ashtrays.
posted by Astro Zombie at 8:01 AM on July 16, 2006

birdherder -

Precedent?! The topic of discussion is Hitler's art, not his record as a German leader. As an artist, no, he's not the tops, but what does that have to do with whether or not this post sets a precedent?

You, and others, are veering off the topic of conversation here.
posted by drleary at 8:02 AM on July 16, 2006

As an artist, could he be said to have had a "Jew period?"
posted by Astro Zombie at 8:08 AM on July 16, 2006

The precedent is linking to a nazi revisionist history site. The art itself and sale of art is not problematic to me.

So to go back on topic: The paintings suck.
posted by birdherder at 8:12 AM on July 16, 2006

They suck, but if I had $50,000 laying around I would definitely get one.

"This was painted by someone I know, blah blah blah. I inherited that one hanging over their from my grandmother. This one was painted by Hitler."
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 8:18 AM on July 16, 2006

Do these feel vaguely Thomas Kinkade-esque to anybody else?
posted by EarBucket at 8:22 AM on July 16, 2006

6am, please keep the editorializing out of your post-titles. Don't we have an NPOV policy in FPPs here?

Kind of like the Hitler Museum does?
posted by jayder at 8:27 AM on July 16, 2006

birdherder:

Thank you.
posted by drleary at 8:30 AM on July 16, 2006

jayder, if we have a NPOV policy here, it's news to me. I think 3/4 of all our posts wouldn't qualify. My few certainly wouldn't. I don't think any reader is likely to confuse 'mass-murdering fuckhead' with anything but opinion.

More on topic: I also find it very interesting that there are no figures in his paintings. I wonder if it was because people are hard to draw well, or if they really were unimportant to him? Given his later history, I have a hard time accepting the innocent explanation.

As neural science and psychology develop, these will be fascinating to study in close detail.
posted by Malor at 8:55 AM on July 16, 2006

nudes.

women.

Well, he did some humans at least.
posted by merelyglib at 9:25 AM on July 16, 2006

6am, please keep the editorializing out of your post-titles. Don't we have an NPOV policy in FPPs here?

Kind of like the Hitler Museum does?

This is a joke, right?
posted by scottreynen at 9:27 AM on July 16, 2006

... and two watercolors in the second link have people in them.

There are others at the Hitler site, but all I wanted to do here was point out that "Hitler never painted people" is false.
posted by merelyglib at 9:31 AM on July 16, 2006

I prefer hitler's birdcalls.
posted by isopraxis at 9:50 AM on July 16, 2006

nice nudes. i like the one where her neck is clearly growing out of the top of her shoulder-- probably in a crude effort to describe the "luxuriating" posture, or possibly because she is genetically deficient and therefore must be destroyed.
posted by gorgor_balabala at 9:55 AM on July 16, 2006

I don't get why you're bothered that Hitler.org got linked. Aren't you secure enough in your beliefs to not be subverted by things you see on the internet?

As for my unneutral POV, well, I can't apologise for that. Anyone who disagrees with it is welcome to assert their particular biased opinions in place of my own. I just thought its quite novel to see Hitlers doodles.
posted by 6am at 9:58 AM on July 16, 2006

All I can say is "Thank goodness Thomas Kincaid was accepted into art school!"

If only Bush had had similar aspirations.
posted by five fresh fish at 9:59 AM on July 16, 2006 [1 favorite]

This is interesting, I've never actually seen any of his art, I'd just heard about it.

That said, he sucks. I much prefer the degenerates. And looking at his work and style, I can see why he hated modernism so much.

And, how hard is it to make a realistic shadow, if you're so obviously going for banal realism? No wonder he didn't get into art school. Unless by the lack of shadow he was somehow (inneffectualy) referencing the transience of natural beauty, or some such garbage.
posted by ruby.aftermath at 10:02 AM on July 16, 2006

I have to agree with the art school's opinion that he just wasn't good at painting people. Some of the watercolors are nice though.
posted by clevershark at 10:02 AM on July 16, 2006 [1 favorite]

I don't get why you're bothered that Hitler.org got linked. Aren't you secure enough in your beliefs to not be subverted by things you see on the internet?

I am secure enough in my beliefs, thank you very much.

I am not a fan of driving traffic to sites are attempting to rewrite recent history. But if Matt is cool with his site linking to a site that denies the Holocaust, there's not a lot I can do about it.
posted by birdherder at 10:09 AM on July 16, 2006

I am not a fan of driving traffic to sites are attempting to rewrite recent history. But if Matt is cool with his site linking to a site that denies the Holocaust, there's not a lot I can do about it.

Why shouldn't he be cool with it?
posted by 6am at 10:12 AM on July 16, 2006

I prefer hitler's birdcalls.

Idi Amin did some gorgeous macrame, IIRC, but sadly none of it is available for viewing online.
posted by Meatbomb at 10:14 AM on July 16, 2006

You know who else liked to.... oh... nevermind.
posted by blue_beetle at 10:16 AM on July 16, 2006

When I'm on the Internet I always close my eyes so as to protect myself against offensive material.
posted by geoff. at 10:16 AM on July 16, 2006

k' someone tale it to MeTa and get it over with.

incidentally if I had more money then I knew what to do with I too would buy hitler painting... but then I'd burn them. I sincerely dislike art that is valuable because it is directly associated with someone, as opposed to valuable because of intrinsic merit.
posted by edgeways at 10:30 AM on July 16, 2006

and the paintings are nothing if not distinctly average. got to love this though.
posted by 6am at 10:33 AM on July 16, 2006

No wonder he hated Jews, Chagall was like 300% better than him.
posted by The Jesse Helms at 10:38 AM on July 16, 2006

Regardless of what y'all think of Hitler, these are pieces of history.

Half of the paintings look like something you could go down to Tuesday Morning and buy. I wonder how many people would even recognize a painting as being from Hitler if you had one hanging above the mantle.
posted by drstein at 10:39 AM on July 16, 2006

Do these feel vaguely Thomas Kinkade-esque to anybody else? *raises hand* Right here. Several of those are Kinkade-esque. I'll keep that in mind if I see Kinkade running for office.
posted by smallerdemon at 10:57 AM on July 16, 2006

I'd buy one. I'd probably take it down when my grandparents were visiting.
posted by blacklite at 11:00 AM on July 16, 2006

There are those who theorize that had Hitler been admitted into the Vienna art school when he applied, then the whole Nazi/Holocaust thing might not have happened.

If Hitler hadn't entered politics, Germany probably would have ended up as a communist state under Thälmann--by far the most popular and dynamic figure in Weimar Germany after Hitler, and just as fond of street violence--or (somewhat less likely) under a conservative military junta. The latter would have been "better" than Hitler in that it wouldn't have been as repressive, brutal or expansionist. But if Germany had been sovietized along with Russia, it isn't a stretch to think that a large chunk of the world might still be communist today. It took Hitler's evil to wake up the isolationist West and give it the will to combat militant anti-democratic philosophies. (Of course, the view that the West fought for capitalism rather than democracy continues to have merit, considering how many of "our bastards" we're still propping up today.)

I am not a fan of driving traffic to sites are attempting to rewrite recent history.

This is some evil shit, right?

I'm reminded of an Amazon profile I came across, which struck me as rather odd:

". . .The only people I have no love and tolerance for are those who hate, like racists, historical revisionists, anyone who hates other people on the basis of something like skin colour, religion, gender, sexual orientation, ethnic origin, or race."

Why can't people just say "I don't like those who don't accept the Holocaust as generally understood," instead of taking a broad-brush approach like that? Historical scholarship--scholarship of any sort--is driven by the constant questioning and re-questioning of the received wisdom of prior generations. Attacking "historical revisionism" is either code for attacking Holocaust revisionism or it just fundamentally misunderstands how historiography works. Either way, the phrase is inaccurate and should be shitcanned.

I sincerely dislike art that is valuable because it is directly associated with someone, as opposed to valuable because of intrinsic merit.

No art is valuable because of intrinstic merit. It's just paint and canvas. Only the perception of value gives it value. Why is "a famous person painted this" any less valid than "this is pretty" or "art critics like this" or "the colors go with the room"?
posted by Makoto at 11:00 AM on July 16, 2006 [1 favorite]

Sexy Hitler!
posted by jonson at 11:01 AM on July 16, 2006

Interesting that a few of his pieces verge on impressionism, which (IIRC) he later condemned as degenerate.
posted by xthlc at 11:10 AM on July 16, 2006

Sexy Hitler is totally NSFW.
posted by Astro Zombie at 11:43 AM on July 16, 2006

And while there are some arguments about the title of this post, no-one has mentioned that it directly quotes Eddie Izzard.

"I cannot get the people right - ah! I'll kill everyone in the world!"

I didn't know that Hitler actually couldn't draw people right.
posted by bruzie at 11:47 AM on July 16, 2006

If I found one of these, but not signed or identified as his, at a flea market I might pick it up if the price was right, but I like old watercolors. They aren't as bad as I thought they might be, and I didn't realize there were so many of them. I had thought art was something he dabbled in, but clearly he really gave it a good solid try. And I can even understand someone wanting to own a piece of history, I'd just want to know that the profit from the sale was going someplace like Simon Wiesenthal center rather than some neonazi kooks. But these little paintings hold such tragedy; they seem like the embodiment of the last possibility that the man could have avoided becoming the monster.
posted by tula at 11:49 AM on July 16, 2006

More evidence that Eddie Izzard is brilliant.
posted by tula at 11:54 AM on July 16, 2006

Next up: Hitler Kokigami, with offensive references to both major theaters of the war.
posted by gimonca at 12:14 PM on July 16, 2006

As an artist, could he be said to have had a "Jew period?"

Oh my...
posted by Demogorgon at 1:51 PM on July 16, 2006

Hitler, Picasso; Same difference.
posted by Astro Zombie at 2:32 PM on July 16, 2006

Man, this is interesting. I think it deserves some study, much like the psychotic guy who painted cats. Many of Hitler's landscapes and buildings etc. were quite competent. But anything the least bit humanistic, dogs, women and nudes are horrible. It's as if he's affraid of or can't relate to those subjects. Sick dude.
posted by snsranch at 2:51 PM on July 16, 2006

I saw an exhibit of his paintings years ago, I think in Florence. I thought the most fascinating thing is that he never puts any people in his pictures.

There are sketches of people on the site. this one has people in it.
posted by delmoi at 3:35 PM on July 16, 2006

I perhaps naively expected the pictures to be more violent or dramatic - lots of pent up anger spewed onto the canvas/paper or failing that in this style. (wall paintings from an SS bunker in Berlin used by his drivers seemingly)

But if anything the watercolours particularly look like hackneyed chocolate box covers.
posted by selton at 5:34 PM on July 16, 2006

Hm. I'm skeptical of the sort instant pyschoanalysis of stuff like this ("he didn't draw people!"/"he had trouble drawing people because he couldn't relate to them", and all that). Kind of reminds me of looking at a "handwriting analysis" book once. All the "analyst" did was take famous peoples' handwriting and attempt to twist the description of it's visual style so that it matched whatever actions or personality traits the person was famous for. These sorts of things don't necessarily have anything at all to do with eachother.
posted by Stauf at 5:48 PM on July 16, 2006

Stauf, at least in my case, there is an "as if" as opposed to an "it's because". It was merely an observation, my boy. It was not at all based on fact, but could well deserve further investigation. It really is an interesting coincidence.
posted by snsranch at 6:06 PM on July 16, 2006

The thing which strikes me most about these is the utter banal normality of them. I agree with the earlier comparisons to Thomas Kinkade, actually. This is the kind of art, I imagine, that as a general rule, was(and is- not these specifically, but the general style) most appreciated by the average non-art-loving person.

drstein: Half of the paintings look like something you could go down to Tuesday Morning and buy. I wonder how many people would even recognize a painting as being from Hitler if you had one hanging above the mantle.

Exactly what I was thinking. That may say something about his political beliefs- certainly this sort of formulaic, non-challenging art tends to be the only style totalitarian governments approve of(though not necessarily)- but I don't think we can say much about the man's psyche from these. The fact that he drew buildings better than people could indeed imply something about the way he viewed people, but it could also mean he just couldn't figure out how to portray the human form well, which is what I'm inclined to think. It's not like he was a very talented artist to begin with.

And on that note, the "psychotic guy who painted cats" was Louis Wain, who you can probably guess I'm a fan of. Wain was, by all accounts, a gentle, kindly man who was stricken with a severe mental illness- schizophrenia, specifically. (Wain was also a much, much better artist than Hitler, even when he was doing kitschy cats-playing-poker type stuff.) Hitler is often called crazy or a madman, and I've never really liked the equation of evil and mental illness implied by that. Assuming Hitler did what he did because he had some mental disorder others him in a way which I think is bad for our understanding of Nazism as a whole- it was, after all, an ideology that appealed to huge numbers of people- and also for our perception of the mentally ill. Hitler's sickness was a moral one, not a mental one, in my opinion.
posted by a louis wain cat at 8:02 PM on July 16, 2006

Godwin in the fourth word. Don't you realize that if you compare Hitler to Hitler, then no one will take you seriously?
posted by eustacescrubb at 8:14 PM on July 16, 2006

I just assumed he was better at drawing immobile objects because they're immobile, and hence easier to draw. I'm better at drawing landscapes than people as well, and I don't think that it's because I want to put jews in ovens.
posted by Bugbread at 9:18 PM on July 16, 2006 [1 favorite]

Stauf, at least in my case, there is an "as if" as opposed to an "it's because". It was merely an observation, my boy. It was not at all based on fact, but could well deserve further investigation. It really is an interesting coincidence.

Did you read my post above? There are pictures of people, you just didn't happen to see any of them at the time.
posted by delmoi at 9:22 PM on July 16, 2006

I just assumed he was better at drawing immobile objects because they're immobile, and hence easier to draw. I'm better at drawing landscapes than people as well, and I don't think that it's because I want to put jews in ovens.
posted by Bugbread at 9:22 PM on July 16, 2006

Whoops.
posted by Bugbread at 9:23 PM on July 16, 2006

"Did you read my post above? There are pictures of people, you just didn't happen to see any of them at the time.
posted by delmoi at 9:22 PM PST"

For that matter, did you read mine? *cough*low-self-esteem*cough*

I keep wondering how much of his body of work we actually see. I know he tried to make a living as a street artist before he became evil incarnate. Isn't it possible that he was just a decent draftsman and that he never painted or sketched anything that wasn't the 'correct' thing if you were an art student who wanted to please your teachers, or an artist who was just trying to make a buck?
posted by merelyglib at 10:11 PM on July 16, 2006

Whoops what? Did you just accidently put a jew in an oven? ??
posted by five fresh fish at 10:40 PM on July 16, 2006

In this weathdr, I would rather be put in a refrigerator.
posted by Astro Zombie at 10:44 PM on July 16, 2006

five fresh fish : "Whoops what?"

I posted the same comment twice by accident.
posted by Bugbread at 10:45 PM on July 16, 2006

Ah. That's a relief.
posted by five fresh fish at 10:50 PM on July 16, 2006

If Hitler owned a fridge, this stuff would be on it.
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 12:12 AM on July 17, 2006

Along with his "To do in" list.
- Jews
- Homosexuals
- Landlord
- Gypsies

I also find it very interesting that there are no figures in his paintings. I wonder if it was because people are hard to draw well, or if they really were unimportant to him?

He wasn't a very talented artist, but reading other things into his art in hindsight makes little sense. The world is full of people who can't draw people up to art-show standards, but that doesn't mean they hate people. They're just untalented artists, maybe too lazy, maybe not obsessed enough, to put in the practice it takes to become good at figure drawing.
posted by pracowity at 1:30 AM on July 17, 2006

And they say art enriches the soul.
posted by disgruntled at 7:03 AM on July 17, 2006

I guess this provides one public service: Every time I read or saw a program that mentioned Hitler's artist period it always seemed to state how his art wasn't very good. However, the examples given never looked that awful to me. Seeing a lot of it together like this, I now realize that a lot of it truly sucks. Somehow, I feel better knowing that.
posted by lordrunningclam at 7:35 AM on July 17, 2006

And they say art enriches the soul./
no, only if you're looking at it. if you make it, it fucks you up, especially if you thought you were good but you're not. mommy public rejects you and you turn all ad hominem. goodbye, humanity, hitler skelter.
posted by gorgor_balabala at 1:13 PM on July 17, 2006