Can't Be Caught in a Four Wall Way of Life

 If you've read this bog more than 10 times, I think that you had to know that it would eventually turn to art historiography. You probably hate that, and are just coming here for feelings and takes, but this is all I think about now, so you'll have to humour me here. 

The Western World™ understands that the Second World War, henceforth known by the more fun pop culture abbreviation WWII, had a dramatic effect on... pretty much everything? There are one million books and films on this and it's so ingrained that depictions can range from extremely serious Oscarbait to pulpy fictionalized versions of things that never happened to someone who probably thinks he is doing the former, but sort of makes the latter. 

Anyways, this dumb movie introduction to WWII is all to get to the point that the war also had a profound effect on art history. And not just on people writing about artworks made during or depicting the war or something, but also on how and where the discipline functioned, which I find more interesting. The version of art history that is taught in North American and European universities originated in nineteenth-century German universities and this country remained the centre of Western art history until the mid-twentieth century.

The reason that centre of art history shifted is because many of the most prominent German art historians at the time were also Jewish and were obviously forced to flee the white supremacist government that had taken power in their country. A few went to Paris and London, but most went to the United States and as a result that country came to dominate art history for the rest of the century!

Okay, history lesson out of the way so that we can now get to why I brought this up in the first place:

Becks bought me this book at a University of Guelph book sale when we first started dating. I think it might the first gift they ever gave me? I've had this book for ages.

Recently, I was reading for my thesis, which is basically all I do now. During this reading, the text discussed Italian art history during WWII, which faced a similar, but less severe, version of the problem presented to Germany. While professors in Italy didn't get ethnically purged from their institutions, they did have to pledge to dictator Benito Mussolini, which entailed not opposing any of his views in their teaching. What kind of sucks is that out of like 1000 professors, only 12 refused to pledge allegiance to a fascist, opting to flee the country instead. What's cool is that Lionello Venturi was one of the 12.

Could be the COVIDmania speaking, but I live for these sorts of connections. Is it dumb to like the idea that the reason I still have the book is that it was written by someone who opposed the fascist regime in his country, even if I didn't know that? I know this to be true, but will like that idea from afar.