Racist Countryside Art

[Roger Ramjets]

Funnily enough, my A-level history teacher refused to let his garage put on Pirelli tyres during his car's MOT because of the CEO's close ties with Mussolini. He apparently yelled to the bemused mechanic, "Don't put those on! They're fascist tyres!" in his best Rik from the Young Ones impression.

Then he admitted that his car was itself a Ford, so maybe he was a bit of a hypocrite. The class had no idea why so he had to explain about how Henry Ford was a huge fan of Hitler.

My father was (fortunately) too young to fight in WWII, but he hated the Japanese for good reason. For many years he refused to buy anything made in Japan.

One of my hobbies is radio controlled model airplanes. I like scale models and have several WWII German planes. But they are not totally scale because I left off the swastikas. Is this 'woke'? No, it's just a small way to acknowledge the horrific history of these planes. War machines are 'cool' until you understand their purpose and the atrocities they were used for. There are still a few people alive who experienced it and I would hate to be responsible for bringing back painful memories. I also don't want to celebrate or endorse Nazism in any way.

In the same vein, I would never hang one of Hitler's paintings in my house. What kind of message would that send? Sometimes a cigar is not just a cigar.

In a similar vein, I wouldn't hang paintings that represent British colonialism because I understand the meaning they have for some people - in particular Maoris who have good reason to resent it. To display such things without a good explanation is tacit racism in the same way that displaying Nazi symbols associates oneself with fascism and genocide.

I do however have a very large original painting in my living room of a pre-European Maori settlement. Is this 'woke'? Not at all. It was painted by my grandmother (who died before I was born) and is a family heirloom.

 

[Lplus]

Have they been laid out in this thread in their original context?

I’d like to read the whole statement before forming an opinion on excerpts. Reporters don’t always convey nuance well.

Exactly. Context is missing.

Nice "out" there...

 

[smartcooky]

My father was (fortunately) too young to fight in WWII, but he hated the Japanese for good reason. For many years he refused to buy anything made in Japan.

One of my hobbies is radio controlled model airplanes. I like scale models and have several WWII German planes. But they are not totally scale because I left off the swastikas. Is this 'woke'

Nope, its not woke, its just dumb. Its denying history (in a virtue-signalling sort of way) or at the very least a lame attempt to sanitize it. If we deny history, we are doomed to repeat it, and we are in danger of repeating it in the next few years if we are not vigilant.

Would you like to know one of the places you will find swasikas on display? In Holocaust Museums. If you don't understand why this is, I suggest you ask. When I visited the one in Richmond VA a few years ago - I remember the exact words the deputy curator used when he spoke to our group after one of the members asked about the swasikas...

"... it is foolish to try to pretend the symbols of Nazi Germany never existed. Hiding them does us no favours."

 

[Lplus]

Worldviews are social constructs pervading social life. Daniel Boorstin's trilogy, The Discoverers, The Creators and The Seekers, though (logically) infused with his own worldview, one with which one might agree or disagree, did effectively manage to juxtapose in history artistic, scientific and sociopolitical movements, with artwork both reflecting an age as well as leading rebellions against it. In this regard, it should come as, well,

NO SURPRISE

...that art enjoys strong ties to the zeitgeist of the day. In fact, to question this is the case is profoundly _______. It is also reasonable to expect that artwork during any time of empire or inspired by that time, especially during the so-called "Age of Discovery" (aka in the global South as the "Age of Colonialism"), that one will find the evils of the day baked in.

My father was (fortunately) too young to fight in WWII, but he hated the Japanese for good reason. For many years he refused to buy anything made in Japan.

One of my hobbies is radio controlled model airplanes. I like scale models and have several WWII German planes. But they are not totally scale because I left off the swastikas. Is this 'woke'? No, it's just a small way to acknowledge the horrific history of these planes. War machines are 'cool' until you understand their purpose and the atrocities they were used for. There are still a few people alive who experienced it and I would hate to be responsible for bringing back painful memories. I also don't want to celebrate or endorse Nazism in any way.

In the same vein, I would never hang one of Hitler's paintings in my house. What kind of message would that send? Sometimes a cigar is not just a cigar.

In a similar vein, I wouldn't hang paintings that represent British colonialism because I understand the meaning they have for some people - in particular Maoris who have good reason to resent it. To display such things without a good explanation is tacit racism in the same way that displaying Nazi symbols associates oneself with fascism and genocide.

I do however have a very large original painting in my living room of a pre-European Maori settlement. Is this 'woke'? Not at all. It was painted by my grandmother (who died before I was born) and is a family heirloom.

How does a picture of (eg) a cart in a river have the evils of the day baked in, or represent colonialism? Should it have a slave being beaten in one corner added to make sure the evils of the day are represented?

If I take a photo of a colourful sunset should it have a vignette of a homeless person in one corner to show that I recognise that such people exist?

 

[Lplus]

Nope, its not woke, its just dumb. Its denying history (in a virtue-signalling sort of way) or at the very least a lame attempt to sanitize it. If we deny history, we are doomed to repeat it, and we are in danger of repeating it in the next few years if we are not vigilant.

Would you like to know one of the places you will find swasikas on display? In Holocaust Museums. If you don't understand why this is, I suggest you ask. When I visited the one in Richmond VA a few years ago. I remember the exact words the deputy curator used when he spoke to our group after one of the members asked about the swasikas...

"... it is foolish to try to pretend the symbols of Nazi Germany never existed. Hiding them does us no favours."

AIUI at least in Germany, the swastika is forbidden from being shown in public. RC models of German aircraft therefore don't have the swastika by law.

 

[smartcooky]

AIUI at least in Germany, the swastika is forbidden from being shown in public. RC models of German aircraft therefore don't have the swastika by law.

Well, you can understand why this is the case there, given 80 years of embarrassment at their complicity.

However, there are some exceptions. This is seen in many places in Germany, especially near the tourist traps.

This one is near Buchenwald

 

[Darat]

AIUI at least in Germany, the swastika is forbidden from being shown in public. RC models of German aircraft therefore don't have the swastika by law.

As ever legislation fails in being able to encode reality. There are exemptions, a common one is "art" but that often adds yet more confusion as there are lots of issues regarding what is regarded as "art" under the legislation, for instance the USK used to have a blanket ban, but that's now been changed. Then you can use them in educational materials (hopefully obvious that does not mean to be used to educate in Nazi doctrine), historical research is another area that can allow the publication. There is then an added twist that it's illegal to use them on social media posts, but there are even exceptions for that!

Even your example is not 100% black and white or black, white and red, as the law that is usually quoted to disallow the swastika on historically accurate replica models is about public display, so you could have such a model legally at home. As a precaution none of the commercial companies want to risk an expensive legal case so they leave them off and/or substitute a different symbol - the tone deaf usually use a triangle of some type. (ETA:I expect that we will see further relaxations if any cases do make it up the courts.)

(As you may be able to tell I've had to deal with this issue professionally a few times over the years.)

To sum it up: it's complicated...

 

[Hlafordlaes]

How does a picture of (eg) a cart in a river have the evils of the day baked in, or represent colonialism? Should it have a slave being beaten in one corner added to make sure the evils of the day are represented?

If I take a photo of a colourful sunset should it have a vignette of a homeless person in one corner to show that I recognise that such people exist?

I haven't seen the artworks, but I do know some art critics well, and that what meets their eye is not quite what meets that of others. This might very well argue in favor of facilitating the "less illustrious" to see the art without filter or caution, but I imagine that is the same crowd that would ignore any cautions about content anyway, so no real problem. It is the general point that art most definitely reflects its time that bore mentioning.

 

[catsmate]

Try not to confuse "woke" with "stupid"

Stupid: "A term used by thinking, intelligent people to describe those having or showing a great lack of intelligence or common sense."

Woke: "A term used by racists and bigots, as a pejorative to describe those people who possess a fully functioning moral compass."

Indeed. As JB put it:

 

[catsmate]

Not this again.

If you haven't got much evidence to justify your views, each and every snippet, no matter how irrelevant, distorted or outright fabricated must be reused.

 

[Lithrael]

While searching to see if anyone had context for/photos of the whole sign/the nearby signage/etc (no luck so far) I found at least one grumpy reactionary article (on a site called 'the unherd' which seems to be a 'we're not sheeple' pun) that jumped into the 'darker implications' with both feet, commenting along the lines of 'the implication that that implication is bad, is that someone who just got here has as much right to be here as someone who's been here for generations. Which is obviously BS'

So kinda sounds like the sign is right, “The darker side of evoking this nationalist feeling is the implication that only those with a historical tie to the land have a right to belong.”

Cue the apologia of these types' hangers-on like 'I wouldn't have jumped in with both feet if you hadn't made me feel like you thought I was gonna jump in with both feet so might as well do it if you're gonna accuse me of it' which is a sentiment I always find totally reasonable and not at all childish

 

[bruto]

A lot of people seem to have their panties in a twist over this, and I'm sure there are some instances of the over-woke, or whatever you want to call it, because idiocy is non-partisan. But it really seems the main thing that's being said, if inelegantly by some standards, is that we ought to think about things we often take for granted. Of course there are a significant percentage of people for whom thought is an unnecessary impediment to correct doctrine, but I would hope that not all here are in that group. After all, one of the results of thought might be to say, "no, I believe you're wrong." That is not the same thing as saying the thought should not have been invited.

 

[Thermal]

While searching to see if anyone had context for/photos of the whole sign/the nearby signage/etc (no luck so far) I found at least one grumpy reactionary article (on a site called 'the unherd' which seems to be a 'we're not sheeple' pun) that jumped into the 'darker implications' with both feet, commenting along the lines of 'the implication that that implication is bad, is that someone who just got here has as much right to be here as someone who's been here for generations. Which is obviously BS'

So kinda sounds like the sign is right, “The darker side of evoking this nationalist feeling is the implication that only those with a historical tie to the land have a right to belong.”

Cue the apologia of these types' hangers-on like 'I wouldn't have jumped in with both feet if you hadn't made me feel like you thought I was gonna jump in with both feet so might as well do it if you're gonna accuse me of it' which is a sentiment I always find totally reasonable and not at all childish

Is the sign right based on one random loon's website tho? Seems to me that one fruitloop on the fringes is a small dark blip, not a dark "side". Dark side, at least to my ears, sounds like it applies to... half, maybe? I mean without getting into sides of a cube and all. Is that kind of thinking so prevalent on that side of the pond that it can in fact be taken as a given, as the sign makers seem to assume?

 

[Stout]

Is this the article in question? With no links or quotes it's hard to tell.

If so then here's a quote that clearly explains how to deal with those dark thoughts.

....It is not possible to make the case for equalising “the right to belong” between someone who arrived in a place yesterday and their neighbour who grew up there unless you dismiss the value of affections and meanings accumulated over time. Inclusion, in other words, requires all of us to view our surroundings without the layers of meaning accumulated through habit and familiarity. Equal belonging means, in practice, that no one can belong: we must all survey our surroundings with the detached, consumerist eye of a passing tourist. In turn, this means landscape paintings are problematic in direct proportion to how fully they convey intimate knowledge and love of a place.

 

[Thermal]

@angrysoba:

You were right, vernacular is a fair way to describe a consistent way of speaking among a culture, though I am still of the opinion that it is being described maybe a bit too stringently by its experts. Still, I was being unnecessarily obstinate for other reasons. Mea culpa.

@mumblethrax:

You were still being a bit of a prick.

 

[mumblethrax]

The highlighted statements are clear. Either you agree with them or you don't.

And? I pointed out that I generally avoid "political correctness run amok!" stories (because they are written as clickbait for outrage addicts, which tends to destroy context and invite fabrication), and you're asking me whether I agree with the statements in the signage?

Whether I do or don't seems more or less irrelevant--we're talking about signage in an exhibit, which doesn't rise to the level of censorship, or even pseudo-censorship. It just doesn't strike me as newsworthy, or important enough to weigh in on. Most of the time I wouldn't even bother reading such signage. Instead, I'd cross my hands behind my back, say something about the brushwork, and wonder how much longer I have to pretend to care about some maudlin work painted by someone who, let's face it, probably hated Jews, or at the very least Slavs.

 

[Lplus]

Is this the article in question? With no links or quotes it's hard to tell.

If so then here's a quote that clearly explains how to deal with those dark thoughts.

It isn't the article in question but the subject is the same.

In this light, two features of the rehang stand out: its abandonment of chronology, and its ambivalence about landscape. In a room displaying a Constable painting of Hampstead Heath, for example, the commentary observes that “pictures of rolling hills” may inspire “pride towards a homeland”, but that this has a “darker” side: “the implication that only those with a historical tie to the land have a right to belong”. This dismissive attitude to the cumulative meaning accorded by time continues in the dissolution of chronological collections in favour of thematic ones.

and this

It’s easy, then, to see why the Fitzwilliam should need rehanging, when you consider the broader ideology into which elite aspirants are educated in the 21st century: one that distils nations, cultures, and specific histories to costumes and cuisines, and in which all places and peoples are interchangeable. This ideology has already tacitly abolished nation states; its quintessential sacred space is not a church or a gallery but the placeless, transient, maximum-security anomie of an airport departure lounge. The Fitzwilliam rehang serves simply to confirm its “way of seeing” for the young elite aspirants flocking to Cambridge’s colleges today.

 

[Orphia Nay]

Nice "out" there...

You think wanting evidence is an “out”.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

Nope, its not woke, its just dumb.

No, it's not dumb. As has been pointed out, displaying the Swastika on German model aircraft is strongly discouraged if not outright illegal. Models that are made for sale there won't have them, including those designed in the US. Therefore if you want the ultimate scale look you have to add them yourself, an overt act.

Many of the r/c model flyers in our clubs are in their 80s and some even older. For them those Nazi symbols are still very real, and may even trigger PTSD. My father is dead now but I know it would have upset him when he was alive.

Real Focke-Wulf FW 190

E-FLiite model

 

[Orphia Nay]

I’ve been reading some more about the Fitzwilliam Museum.

Viscount Fitzwilliam (namesake of and donor of a large sum of money and art to the museum) was left a large part of his fortune by his grandfather, Matthew Decker.

“Decker was a prominent Dutch-born British merchant and financier who in 1700 helped to establish the South Sea Company.

“This company obtained exclusive rights to traffic African people to the Spanish colonial Americas.”

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-66633374

“Racist countryside art”, indeed.