Kultur (Culture), K. Wagner

Exhibition Label: "Conversation XVIII: World War I," Jan-2014, Stephen Goddard We know nothing about this artist, but presumably he is among the many little-known illustrators who contributed to the war effort in France by applying his skills to the propaganda campaign. This is one of several works in the Museum’s collection that satirizes the German claim to status as a protector of European culture. Exhibition Label: "Machine in a Void: World War I & the Graphic Arts," Mar-2010, Steve Goddard At the end of the 19th century, in an attempt to justify Germany’s special mission in Europe, German philosophers perpetuated the dichotomy of culture and civilization (Kultur and Zivilisation). They imbued civilization with various negative connotations of heartless industrialization and capitalism, in opposition to the notion of culture and it positive association with aesthetic values. At the onset of the First World War, the Allies ironically used the German aspirations about spreading Kultur as one of their propagandistic themes. According to the French philosopher Émile Boutroux, the French were the real defenders of cultural values since their concepts of democracy and freedom were inherited from the Greeks, while Germany could only claim its barbarian past. Thus, the First World War ceased to be just a military conflict and also became a war of ideologies, with two parties trying to assert their cultural superiority. Wagner’s print exemplifies the Allies stance on this cultural war. It visualizes Germany’s “spreading of culture” as an allegory of death plowing Europe’s land and seeding it with ruins and corpses.