To the editors:
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Fred Camper certainly covered many historical and aesthetic issues raised by the show “‘Degenerate Art’: The Fate of the Avant-garde in Nazi Germany” [August 9]. And though he made it clear that he thought that many of the works displayed were excellent examples of the modern idiom (and far superior to the styles preferred by those wretched Nazis), he never addressed the original concept of the exhibition: “Degeneracy” in the Arts. Could these paintings be considered degenerate? Could the term “degeneracy” even be used in discussing what is important about a work of art?
Personally, I like these degenerate artists of the 30s. At least they were angry about the alienation to which we had fallen–instead of blithely celebrating it as the avant-garde of the past 40 years has done.
