We have already reached a level which makes it difficult to decide between two or three works of equal merit. From one exhibition to the next, we are prepared to apply ever-more stringent criteria to select from the mass of decent average ability the works of true talent.
Therefore, we hope and expect all the more that those called on to practice art will approach their work with holy zeal. This third exhibition in the Haus der Deutschen Kunst reinforces this belief. Not only do we believe, we know, that today already many bright stars have appeared on the horizon of artistic work in Germany. It has an uplifting effect on the truly creative genius. A decent standard has been achieved, which means a lot. The whole swindle of fashionable art – decadent, diseased, and dishonest – has been swept away. Just as the campaign for architectural recovery had its beginnings in this city, Munich, a cleansing of the perhaps even more devastated field of sculpture and painting was launched here three years ago. The primary goal of our artistic work in Germany has no doubt already been attained today. Actually, this is a shameful as well as a shattering realization! It even reached the point where the most successful statesmen, the greatest warlords, and the immortal artists of this otherwise great age did not know one another. Perhaps the fundamental reason for this lay in the fact that a number of the men making history then lacked I would not say an appreciation of art, but had a more or less pronounced lack of interest in the arts. In other words, what was lacking was the strength to transform the total output into a cohesive whole, to go beyond partially ingenious individual works, and to express all this in a manner worthy of a truly great age. Rather this is due to the obvious failure to give cultural expression to the recent, great historic accomplishment in an original manner.
It is perhaps not so much the multifariousness of the artistic work back in the early days of the new Reich’s foundation to which we owe the general characteristics of this period, which are so unsatisfactory to us. For I do not believe that this can ever be completely avoided, and I do not think that this must necessarily be detrimental. I most assuredly do not wish to side with those who utterly condemn the artistic achievements of the latter half of the 19th century simply because they hold them to be the more or less glutted reflection of the styles of various past epochs.
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