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The Excerpts - 2007-09-14 08:52:52 1. "Hitler wanted a 'comprehensive and high-quality display of contemporary art' [for his new Temple of Art filled with works looted from private individuals and museums]. The jury, which included several mediocre artists such as Adolf Ziegler, a painter of realistic nudes known in art circles as 'The Master of the Pubic Hair' and Gerda Troost, wife of Paul Troost, the architect who had designed the museum, was by now only too aware of what was not acceptable, but still not sure what was. They decided on an open competition. The only requirement for entry was German nationality or 'race.' ...Hitler also...put his chief photographer and art adviser of the moment, Heinrich Hoffman, in charge. Hoffman soon became quite efficient at dealing with the thousands of works submitted: he would speed through the galleries in a motorized wheelchair, shouting 'Accepted!' or 'Rejected!' to scurrying assistants as he passed each picture. 'I drove by two thousand pictures only this morning,' he proudly told a colleague. 'How else could I get ready in time?'" --Lynn Nicholas, The Rape of Europa: The Fate of Europe's Treasures in the Third Reich and the Second World War 2. "Amid the rubble of Manhattan financial institutions that literally collapsed for good, a few bank vaults stand; the money within, however worthless, is mildewed but safe. Not so the artwork stored in museum vaults, built more for climate control than strength. Without electricity, protection ceases; eventually museum roofs spring leaks, usually starting with their skylights, and their basements fill with standing water. Subjected to wild swings of humidity and temperature, everything in storage rooms is prey to mold, bacteria, and the voracious larvae of a notorious museum scourge, the black carpet beetle. As they spread to other floors, fungi discolor and dissolve paintings in the Metropolitan beyond recognition. Ceramics, however, are doing fine, since they're chemically similar to fossils. Unless something falls on them first, they await reburial for the next archaeologist to dig them up. Corrosion has thickened the patina on bronze statues, but hasn't affected their shapes. 'That's why we know about the Bronze Age,' notes Manhattan art conservator Barbara Appelbaum." --Alan Weisman, The World Without Us add your comment: |