The far right generally isn’t fond of modern art. There is nothing new in its fear of the rejection of tradition. What is new is that today’s far-right parties seem to see this threat not just in contemporary culture, but also in modern art created a century ago.
In 1933, the Nazis brutally crushed the Bauhaus school, one of Germany’s most important contributions to modern art and architecture. They saw its internationalist outlook and its many foreign and Jewish members as “un-German”; leftwingers were particularly attracted to the movement’s radical rejection of local tradition in favour of universal styles. But the Nazis failed to stop the design revolution it had unleashed. The minimalist and functional principles of Bauhaus have found their way into our lives, inspiring everything from Ikea furniture to prefabricated housebuilding. A recent development in Germany, though, has revealed that the underlying culture war is far from over.
