After reading Robert Edsel's book Saving Italy recently, I decided to watch the movie Monuments Men (based on the book) again last night ( no, not because George Clooney stars in it, but god knows that's reason enough..) Both are written by the same author and both deal with the same subject; the theft of millions of pieces of Renaissance art (and 20th c. art as well) by Nazi Germany.
Prior to Herr Hitler becoming the Chancellor of Germany in 1933, he was denied admission to Vienna's Academy of Fine Art, twice. Considering his ego-manic/physchopathic leanings, this must have chafed the little man from Austria to a very large degree. But why he chose to plunder a major portion of Europe's art/culture from museums, castles, churches, and private collections, like no one before or since, remains up for debate.
In response however, the Americans, headed by Roosevelt, created the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archive section of the military. The Monuments Men were charged with finding, protecting, and returning the hundreds of thousands of masterpieces ( including pieces by Leonardo, Titian, Raphael, Botticelli, Michelangelo, and Rembradt, to name only the most famous) looted my Hitler and his goons.
You will have to watch the movie or read the book to find out how they did this, but the scene in the movie that really stuck with me today as I worked in by own studio all day, was the very last scene, actually the last two scenes really. After months of running around war-torn Europe with absolutely no support from the military, (not even transportation) and after losing a man trying to save the Bruge Madonna by Michaelangelo, George Clooney is back in the States giving a report to President Roosevelt about how it went. At the end of Clooney's presentation to the president, Roosevelt asks George's character if it was worth it; was it worth the men that they lost to save one piece of art? What would the soldier that died think? Would anyone in 30 years time see the Madonna and think yes, it was worth it? Clooney pauses for a second and then says, emphatically yes, he did think one piece of art was worth it , and moreover he also thought that his fallen comrade would agree with him. Cut to the final scene in 1977 (30 years later); George Clooney, an older man by then, standing with his grandson viewing the Madonna.. And he says, "Yep, it was worth it" The End...
Wow, as an artist that really brought up a lot of issues for me today...Did I agree, disagree? I don't know if I came to any conclusions but I did flashback to a scene in my own life in 2005; Florence, Italy, The Uffizi Museum. After walking through the museum with hundreds, perhaps thousands of visitors that day, in order to view the most famous of the Renaissance masterpieces, including Botticelli's Birth of Venus, I realized somehow I had missed that particular room in the maze of viewing halls. Now the Uffizi is only one-way, you can only enter and exit in one long continuous walkway squeezed in with hundreds of other people going in the same direction. When I realized I had missed one of my favorite paintings of all time, and that I couldn't go back to the beginning and start the museum over, I walked through the Uffizi backward, against thousands of people going the other way. I wanted to see The Venus, damn it! And I did, and I was glad that I was maybe the only person who ever did the entire Uffizi in the wrong direction, against a tide of humanity, but it was worth it.
Now I am the opposite of nationalistic, but I have to admit that I am proud of what the Americans did to save European art/culture in the 1940's. Was it worth the lives that would lost? I just don't know, but I do try to honor and keep alive the memory of the men and women who died trying...
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