Hello Oliver Rawlings fans. Growing up I was
drawn to art of all kinds. Whether it was the master pieces of the renaissance artists,
the landscapes of the romantic artists or the abstract musings of the modern
impressionists, I’ve always appreciated a skillfully depicted piece of art. Art
was what got me into photography; what taught me the value of taking something
beautiful and capturing it into an image for the world to see. This is why the
discovery of any type of art that was thought to be lost excites me in a way
that little else does. It provides me with hope for the future of the medium.
It’s been a few weeks now since the world
discovered how a stash of art had been found at an apartment in Munich. This
discovery actually happened a few years ago, although it’s only just been
revealed to the general public. What happened was that an old German man, whose
father had worked for Hitler as an art dealer back when the Nazis terrorised
the continent, was found to have over a thousand works of art that were thought
to be lost after the Nazi’s stole them during the war. They stole them either
because they labeled it ‘degenerate art’ that needed to be taken away from
public consumption or because they wanted it for an art museum Hitler was
planning to build in his home town of Linz in Austria.
It’s been a few weeks now since the world
learned of this discovery. The dust has been given a chance to settle and the press had finally stopped
reporting on it 24/7 and those of us with a genuine interest for art can
finally start to try and speculate what this treasure trove of discovered works
may bring to the field of artistry. Most obviously it brings us works we
thought we had lost forever. These were some of the works that we thought we’d
never get back, that our children and grandchildren would never get a chance to
see. Now, once they’ve been cleared by the German government and put on display
then many future generations are going to get a chance to see the works of
these masters of the craft and learn from them. We thought that chance was
lost.
