# Was Hitler a Good Artist? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 17, 2003, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-hitler-a-good-artist/202185 "2003-09-17T18:16:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Ale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@Ale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ale)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2003, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-hitler-a-good-artist/202185/21 "2003-09-18T05:37:42Z")
The second dog actually is quite good; and, wait… could it be Lenin on the third caricature!? 😛 I wouldn´t call him and artist really, just a skilled drawer at most. 99% of what I´ve seen lacks emotion. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2003, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-hitler-a-good-artist/202185/22 "2003-09-18T06:18:58Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by HPL \* > \*\*Apparently it’s a “non-biased historical museum” without any kind of holcaust Denial. A collection of his speeches, artwork, etc. \*\* It’s a pro-Hitler site. Notice the approving tone of the biographical notes and the lack of mention of the holocaust but more importantly look at the links page. It links to White Supremacist and holocaust denial sites. This is a Nazi site masquerading as “unbiased.” take some time to really examine it. ---
**Author:** ![yosemite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/3ab097/32.png) [@yosemite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yosemite)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2003, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-hitler-a-good-artist/202185/23 "2003-09-18T06:26:32Z")
Some of his ink work was OK. And his architechtual stuff was pretty good. The figure drawings and especially the people are where he really shows his shortcomings. > [@](#): > > lissener wrote: > This may be hindsight, but there’s a fascist sensibility to his paintings: the people don’t matter at all, while the buildings–the organs of the state, etc.–are solid and powerful. There’s no recognizable humanity in the people pictured; I get the feeling he’d rather have eliminated them from the composition. Actually, not being able to draw people well (but doing OK with buildings) is pretty typical, in my experience. Drawing people seems harder for many artists. I can’t tell you how many artists I know who love to draw, but when asked to do a portrait, flatly refuse, saying, “I don’t draw people.” In art school, I knew many students (usually male, for some reason) who could render the most _amazing_ buildings, cars, spaceships, anything mechanical–but when it came to people, man, they sucked. Their people were dead, lifeless, cold, and “wrong.” Just like Hitler’s drawings. ---
**Author:** ![Fretful\_Porpentine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fretful_porpentine/32/2873_2.png) [@Fretful\_Porpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fretful_Porpentine)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2003, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-hitler-a-good-artist/202185/24 "2003-09-18T13:38:21Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Lamia \* > \*\*Depends on what you mean by “good artist”. For being a major political figure, I guess he was a good artist. But his stuff was never going to end up on the wall of any respectable art museum. He couldn’t even have hacked it as a commercial portrait painter – as **dropzone** said, his figure work was pretty lousy. Not just people either, but animals too. I’ve seen one of his landscapes that features a moose that is almost comically awkward. \*\* Well, to be fair to Hitler, it’s in the nature of moose to be comically awkward; at least, _I_ have never seen a real one that wasn’t. Is it just me or do the buildings in his pictures all seem to be tilted at odd angles? ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2003, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-hitler-a-good-artist/202185/25 "2003-09-18T13:38:30Z")
William Shirer in _The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich_ noted that Hitler’s “people” looked like small stuffed sacks. I’d say Adolf is in the middle of the pack when it comes to painting skills among mass killers…ranking a little higher than John Wayne Gacy and his clowns, but not quite as good as Charles Starkweather (who could do a pretty fair Western scene in watercolors). ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2003, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-hitler-a-good-artist/202185/26 "2003-09-18T14:11:23Z")
Well, we probably have the human look hard-wired into our brain, maybe even to the point of having specialized neurons to interpret body language, etc. But this doesn’t necessarily translate into making the human easier to DRAW. Just easier to automatically see that something just isn’t “right” about a face or body. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2003, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-hitler-a-good-artist/202185/27 "2003-09-18T15:01:03Z")
Incidentally, I applaud the attention given to the sensitive, artistic side of der Fuehrer…the Hitler we knew, the Hitler we loved, the Hitler with a song in his heart.\* \*more obligatory tribute to _The Producers_ ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2003, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-hitler-a-good-artist/202185/28 "2003-09-18T15:27:48Z")
Thank Goodness Hitler then went on to do drawings & paintings for the up & coming American SciFi pulp magazines from whence he derived his well-deserved fame, leading to his writing the successful SciFi/Fantasy novel LORDS OF THE SWASTIKA. Waiting… ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2003, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-hitler-a-good-artist/202185/29 "2003-09-18T16:37:39Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Guinastasia \* > \*\ ***even sven** , your post made me realize how I wanted to describe Hitler’s artwork, and couldn’t: they’re cold. > > His work is cold, dull, and without emotion. There’s no sense that the artist is enjoying what he’s doing. He’s just going through the motions. \*\* Pretty odd description considering the “artist” himself was full of fiery passion. Then again, emotion not expressed appropriately often finds other ways to act out, I suppose. I can find a few possible reasons why his work lacked passion: -He didn’t have the skill for it. -As is true with many authoritarian personalities, he felt uncomfortable expressing anything resembling warmth. People like that usually pride themselves on being even tempered, but betray that coldness when the white hot rage comes out. -He liked that cold look. Hey, sometimes I do to. -The paintings we see are something he considered to be excercises, not work to be taken seriously. When I practice music, sometimes I do so in the most dispassionate way, just to get a technique under my fingers. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2003, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-hitler-a-good-artist/202185/30 "2003-09-18T16:58:58Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Ale \* > \*\*The second dog actually is quite good; and, wait… could it be Lenin on the third caricature!? 😛 > I wouldn´t call him and artist really, just a skilled drawer at most. 99% of what I´ve seen lacks emotion. \*\* It looks more like the Tsar of Bulgaria, “Foxy” Ferdinand, to me. ---
**Author:** ![HPL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2003, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-hitler-a-good-artist/202185/31 "2003-09-19T02:45:20Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Diogenes the Cynic \* > \*\*It’s a pro-Hitler site. Notice the approving tone of the biographical notes and the lack of mention of the holocaust but more importantly look at the links page. It links to White Supremacist and holocaust denial sites. This is a Nazi site masquerading as “unbiased.” take some time to really examine it. \*\* DOH! ---
**Author:** ![yosemite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/3ab097/32.png) [@yosemite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yosemite)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2003, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-hitler-a-good-artist/202185/32 "2003-09-19T03:35:24Z")
> [@](#): > > Ludovic wrote: > > But this doesn’t necessarily translate into making the human easier to DRAW. Just easier to automatically see that something just isn’t “right” about a face or body. Excellent point. I see a lot of artists who actually don’t draw _anything_ all that accurately.They’ll fudge on their floral paintings, or landscapes, or whatever. But since these subjects can have some variations and still look “normal,” we don’t notice. But if someone draws a _person_ off, it’s immediately noticable. No wiggle room there. I do know of artists who _do_ draw quite well, but they just can’t get that…_feel_ for people. I once was in an advanced art class with a guy like this. This guy was _big_–worked for Disney, had his work profiled in TV Guide (he did work for the movies), book cover art, and so forth. But he had a terrible time trying to get that dead “rubbery” look out of his people. He was a really good artist otherwise. He just needed to spend a lot of extra time working on his people. I don’t know if he ever got the past “okay.” Now Hitler, I think he was ordinary; mediocre. Not bad for a “hobbyist,” but nothing special. And because he was mediocre, it shows the most in his drawings of people. However, I did see some nice ink work and a few more lively pieces. Maybe if he’d stuck with art and given up the psychotic dictator schtick, he would have eventually developed into a half-way decent artist. ---
**Author:** ![Ale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@Ale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ale)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2003, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-hitler-a-good-artist/202185/33 "2003-09-19T03:40:21Z")
From Shodan way up there: > [@](#): > > Unfortunately, he succeeded at his third choice of career. Fortunately he did NOT succeed at that neither. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Roches](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bc8723/32.png) [@Roches](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roches)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2003, 5:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-hitler-a-good-artist/202185/34 "2003-09-19T05:48:51Z")
[Hitler.org](http://Hitler.org) is clearly pro-Hitler; you can tell without leaving the main page for the art section. Even the first sentence is a distortion of the truth – _Mein Kampf_ sold very slowly until owning a copy became a required token of loyalty to Hitler. The whole page reminds me of Nazi-era propaganda portraying the Führer as a well-rounded and very personable man (the opposite, really, of what reading _Mein Kampf_ would have revealed about his character even in 1930). The art itself is much as I thought it would be from the few examples I’ve seen and the descriptions I’ve read. The architectural paintings are realistic and have some merit – the painting of the Hofbräuhaus in Munich is particularly interesting (though I wish it were dated). Accurately painting buildings is different than truly creative art, though – I’m reminded of autistic children who can create stunning depiction of buildings but can draw nothing else. The flowers are reasonably faithful and have adequate but not striking color. They’re the kind of thing you’d expect to see on a living-room wall, or maybe in a hotel room. Salable, but not remarkable. The caricatures struck me as childish, even obscene. The[round-faced man](http://www.hitler.org/art/doodles/doodle2.jpg) looks like something drawn by Hitler, or at least a psychopath. [One of them](http://www.hitler.org/art/doodles/doodle10.jpg) seems to have the stereotyped “Jewish” features (a drooping face, large nose and forehead) of later anti-Semitic propaganda. The women, nudes and otherwise, give the best insights. The faces seem distorted in many cases, but the bodies are reasonably proportionate. From a 21st-century perspective, the women seem thick and desexualized (or at least motherly), except for [this one](http://www.hitler.org/art/women/eva1.jpg). The facial expression there is disturbing and reminds me of some of Hitler’s supposed [unusual sexual proclivities](http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/hitleross1.html). [This website](http://fcit.coedu.usf.edu/holocaust/arts/art.htm) shows some art of the Nazi era. You can guess at Hitler’s taste in art by comparing the examples of Nazi-approved art with examples of “degenerate art”. The examples of art from ghettoes and concentration camps should serve as a reminder of the reality behind what [hitler.org](http://hitler.org) describes as his “profound artistic vision”. ---
**Author:** ![Brutus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@Brutus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brutus)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2003, 7:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-hitler-a-good-artist/202185/35 "2003-09-19T07:30:29Z")
Read the “Programme of the NSDAP” section, and tell me with a straight face that the Nazis weren’t socialists. Racist socialists, sure, but socialists none the less. As for the art, eh. The buildings were great, IMO, as were the doggies. Adolf could use some help with his people-drawing skills, though. But Michelangelo doesn’t have much to worry about. ---
**Author:** ![mrsface](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a9adbd/32.png) [@mrsface](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mrsface)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2003, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-hitler-a-good-artist/202185/36 "2003-09-19T12:43:51Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Roches \* > \*\* > > Accurately painting buildings is different than truly creative art, though – I’m reminded of autistic children who can create stunning depiction of buildings but can draw nothing else. > > \*\* This is an interesting point but I don’t think it’s quite right. The reason why some autistic children produce apparently precocious drawings is that they draw “literally” - they draw exactly what they see, without filtering it through the conceptual system. So, normally developing children will draw very schematic figures or objects, ideas of objects, and gradually refine them as they grow older. Autistic children often lack these basic concepts and simply draw what their eyes perceive. The best known example is Stephen Wiltshire’s architectural drawings - though other autistic artists have made extraordinarily competent drawings of people. Art schools try to get students to strip away their preconceptions and get people back to the “autistic” position - seeing the world afresh. Re Hitler, it is almost impossible to judge the work objectively when you know who painted them, but here goes. The buildings show a firm grasp of perspective and detail and are competent. The nudes, faces and animals on the other hand are clumsy, immature and pedestrian, the sort of thing you’d expect to see in an art-class of 15-year-olds. Most of the landscapes are competent, but wholly unoriginal. They are postcard-views, not art, because the artist has contributed nothing new. The comparison with the Churchill paintings is interesting because of the contrast in the use of colour. Churchill obviously enjoyed colour, while Hitler’s flat, thin, anaemic colours are perhaps the most remarkable thing about some very unremarkable painting. So no, Hitler was not a good artist, though he would have had a future in technical drawing or as an architect’s assistant. If only someone had seen this and given him a job… ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2003, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-hitler-a-good-artist/202185/37 "2003-09-19T13:01:28Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Brutus \* > \*\*Read the “Programme of the NSDAP” section, and tell me with a straight face that the Nazis weren’t socialists. Racist socialists, sure, but socialists none the less. \*\* Well, not after the purge of the Strassers. ---
**Author:** ![Aro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b3f665/32.png) [@Aro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aro)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2003, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-hitler-a-good-artist/202185/38 "2003-09-19T13:01:31Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Shodan \* > **He also failed the entrance exam to an architectural school because he was required to design a building, and vented the exhaust directly into a recreation area.** I find this completely incredulous - does anyone have a cite for it? It smacks of pure, retrospectively applied, urban legend. Not only do you NOT have to design a building to get onto an architectural course, architects do not, generally, design services for buildings anyway - and especially not as an entry requirement for a course. This story is so not true. (Although, as **Guin** said, is rather ironic in a totally morbid way). On the paintings, I think some are OK for street sketches, but some of his buildings also lack a sharp exactness on perspective- some just look slightly _'off skew_’ to my eye. ---
**Author:** ![Roches](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bc8723/32.png) [@Roches](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roches)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2003, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-hitler-a-good-artist/202185/39 "2003-09-19T13:51:47Z")
Brutus: The dogs appeared to be competent sketches at first, but when I looked at them a second time, they seemed to have the same not-quite-right characteristic of the human faces. mrsface: The “What if Hitler had become an artist?” question is a major one in speculative history, but I don’t think he would have lived out his life making postcards if only he had been accepted. His fervent anti-Semitism, anti-Communism and German nationalism seem to have began mostly during his time as an impoverished drifter in Vienna, and were amplified by his experience in and after the First World War. Even if he had become an artist, I think he would have still become involved in politics as soon as he found an audience receptive to his beliefs. In post-war Bavaria, there were several such audiences, and it can probably be argued that the Second World War was made inevitable more by the condition in Germany and the rest of Europe after the first one than by Hitler’s failure as an artist. There may well have been another Hitler – or he himself may have abandoned his career to go into politics. On monoorchidosis: Hitler having only one testicle, which has been mentioned here, is probably also an urban legend. It has its origins in a wartime song that starts _Hitler… has only got one ball_, and then describes the testicles of various fascists, ranging from atrophied (Goering, ironically, and Himmler) to absent (Goebbels, also ironically considering his fecundity). It’s true that the autopsy of Hitler conducted by the Soviets says he had only one testicle, but this was probably done for propaganda reasons (to emasculate the vanquished fascist, and possibly to fulfil the song). Monoorchidism (having only one testicle) is also very rare. It seems far more likely that the song is responsible for the legend than that Hitler suffered from a rare condition that wouldn’t have explained his personality anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2003, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-hitler-a-good-artist/202185/40 "2003-09-19T14:10:37Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Roches \* > \*\* It has its origins in a wartime song that starts _Hitler… has only got one ball_, \*\* [to the tune of the Colonel Bogie March] Hitler has only got one ball. Goering has two but very small. Himmler is very sim’lar, and Goebbels Has no balls at all [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-hitler-a-good-artist/202185.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-hitler-a-good-artist/202185.md?page=3)