Free Custom «The Rape of Europa» Essay Paper

1. Gustav Klimt was an Austrian modernist painter of the 20^th century. The Austrian government refused to return the paintings to Maria Altmann because they referred to Adele Bloch-Bauer`s last will that authorizes the National Museum of Vienna to keep her paintings after her husband`s death. The recognized art of Nazism was the one that adhered to academic canons and was not degenerate because of variety of colors. Romantic German art, for instance, was acceptable to Hitler. 2. Hitler and Himmler collected works of art because Hitler was obsessed by art and wanted to take control over famous images. He foreseed their power in his ulterior political campaign, in order to influence cultural policy. 3. Hitler and his confederates, accompanied by the art curators, examined works of art and chose what would fit for Hitler` collection. 4. Hitler wanted to build a sort of Acropolis in Lintz, based on his own plan: it would consist of a huge library, an immense museum, an opera house, and a mausoleum. Albert Speer was Hitler`s architect. 5. The Altar of Krakow was removed from the church by the Poles because they wanted to preserve it from Hitler`s invasion. As the Altar was made by a German sculptor, and the Nazis considered it as a national property that should be returned to its ‘fatherland’, due to this it was preserved. 6. The museum ‘has to wait’ for the Raphael`s painting because its thief is missing, and it certainly was inherited by his heirs that are not conscious of the painting`s value, and would sooner or later sell it - that is when it would come to light. They might wait for the next generation. 7. The director of the Louvre ordered to move out the museum`s masterpieces to the castles outside Paris, because they were the main cultural patrimony of France. 8. The “Mona Lisa” was evacuated in an ambulance with a special level of humidity inside the car. 9. The painting was returned to Claude Delibes because the Museum admitted it had no right to keep a painting that previously belonged to her father, a great fine arts collector. 10. Hitler waged a war of aeolation and ‘scorched earth’ campaign against Soviet Union. 11. Hitler wanted to strike at the Soviet Union`s heart of culture and art – St. Petersburg`s Hermitage, and wipe the latter off the Earth. 12. Hermitage is the major Russian museum, which is four times bigger than Louvre in Paris. 13. The Siege of Leningrad lasted for 900 days. 14. The Nazis had stripped the valuable panels of the Catherine`s Palace Amber Room. 15. The Monuments Men were people who were selected to hold a special mission during the Second World War in Italy: they preserved monuments of world value from the destructive impact of war. 16. Monte Cassino is a famous Italian monastery that has been built in the 529, and rebuilt many times in the centuries that followed. It is a sacred building that is pride and honor of Italian culture. 17. The return of the great masterpieces back to Florence gave the Italians and the Allies a sense of victory, the victory of beauty over horror and disaster.18. At the beginning of 1949 Soviet authorities returned over a million of artworks that have been evacuated from the former Nazi Germany to Eastern Block countries. The rest of the artworks have not been returned and remained a Russian property, but there is a justification to this. Leningrad alone lost one million people during the Siege, and still lives the generation that has gained the trophies with tears and blood, so it is immoral to take away these artworks from Russia. In any way, at this time.