Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

The rich network of popular cultural institutions created by the German labour movement after 1890 is unique in the history of the European working class. In this study the author discusses the role of visual art in the working-class environment, both as an influence in the home and in the political agitation and propaganda of the political parties. Art was expected to 'create islands of beauty in a sea of ugliness' and to deepen the workers' aesthetic understanding. The political art of these years reflected both a utopian belief in the success of the struggle and the harsh images of a revolutionary ideology. It also represents the range of political beliefs, from the pro-democratic stance of social democracy to the revolutionary rhetoric of the communist movement. The book is an original contribution to our understanding of the use of visual art and images in the process of education and of political communication in the German working class but it also looks beyond this to show the links between workers and progressive or pro-socialist artists, limited though such co-operation was.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Plates (p. vi)
• Abbreviations (p. x)
• Preface (p. xi)
• 1 Art, ideology and the working class (p. 1)
• 2 Art, illustration and the proletariat, c. 1848-1914 (p. 21)
• 3 The November revolution and the visual arts (p. 55)
• 4 Artistic utopianism versus committed art (p. 73)
• 5 Agitation and art: the press (p. 98)
• 6 Art exhibitions and the Labour Movement, 1918-33: provision and reception (p. 115)
• 7 'Let the arts accompany them': traditions of socialist cultural movements (p. 132)
• 8 'Art as a weapon': Communist aims and techniques and the visual arts (p. 149)
• 9 Political agitation and images (p. 171)
• 10 Art and ideology (p. 196)
• Appendices
• 1 Artists featured in five socialist or Communist periodicals 1918-32 (p. 213)
• 2 Art exhibitions which addressed themselves specifically to the working class 1919-32 (p. 215)
• Index (p. 219)

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

The merit of this book is Guttsman's repeated reminder of the cultural tensions marking the relationship between radical artists and the working classes: the proletariat rarely appreciated the utopian and avant-garde images created by painters or printmakers, preferring instead traditional representations of labor, social, and political emancipation. Guttsman, a retired librarian from the University of East Anglia who has previously published on the German working class, has probed this aesthetic divide in a reflective and thoughtful discussion. An especially stimulating chapter describes May Day illustrations and their uses in pre-1914 Germany. The text, however, concentrates on the Weimar Republican period of the 1920s when in the aftermath of war and defeat, socialist, communist, and radical artists and political activists attempted to forge a new relationship between the role of the arts (painting, graphics, photography) and the lives of workers. Guttsman discusses art exhibitions held in department stores, the growing antagonisms between the Social Democrats and communists over cultural policies, and the function of the press. Given the complexity of the subject matter, the author can only describe these myriad developments briefly. The prose style is rather wooden, but the volume certainly contributes to a better understanding of the attempts by artists, critics, and workers themselves to link the political left and visual culture in Weimar Germany. Upper-division undergraduate; graduate; faculty. M. Deshmukh George Mason University

Author notes provided by Syndetics

W. L. Guttsman was founder-Librarian of the University of East Anglia. He is now Emeritus Librarian