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Art in the Ghetto: Imagination, Spectators, and the Paintings of Terezin

Key Words: Imagination, Spectator, Holocaust, Moral Education, Ideal

Abstract: In this paper I focus on a unique collection of artworks called the Paintings of Terezin. Created surreptitiously in a Czech Ghetto during WWII, I utilize these paintings to challenge traditional aesthetic theories’ conception of ideal spectators. I mine the major aesthetic theories of Plato, Kant, Dewey, and Dufrenne in order to find general and ubiquitous conditions required for the ideal spectator, namely the maintenance of a proper distance and the capacity for moral education via imagination. I examine the paintings in connection to the traditional ideals in order to highlight potential issues with and solutions to the traditional ideals.

Throughout the history of philosophy imagination is the faculty most often credited with

the production and contemplation of artwork. The faculty and its utility have been employed in

numerous ways depending on the theorist and his agenda. Here I examine imagination by means

of four disparate theories of art as presented in the works of Plato, Immanuel Kant, John Dewey

and Mikel Dufrenne. Despite the different perspectives of each philosopher, all four art theories

provide criteria that constitute an ideal spectator of art. The ideal spectator is distinguished by a

number of features, including the possibility of a moral education and the maintenance of a

proper mental distance from the work. For all the theories, imagination is the crucial element

required for the fulfillment of each condition and, therefore, the ideal spectator as well. Since

each theorist arrives at the same conclusion regarding imagination’s work for the ideal spectator,

it seems to imply that there is an objective experience when it comes to spectating artwork. I

apply this ubiquitous ideal to a specific collection of art, the paintings of Terezin, in order to test

the boundaries of this objective experience. These paintings, done in a Czech ghetto during

WWII, serve as a tool of illumination because they pose problems for each theory. In particular,

these works of art prevent the ideal spectator from performing her imaginative processes. The

paintings of Terezin, then, can be understood as a case that fundamentally challenges traditional

aesthetic ideals.

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The Paintings of Terezin

The town of Terezin, or Theresienstadt, was founded in 1780 by Emperor Josef II in

honor of his mother, Maria Theresa.1 Terezin the ghetto, located some 30 miles outside of

Prague, was established November 1941 on the site of an old Czech

fortress.2 Terezin was a complex and interesting ghetto insofar as it

was used for Nazi propaganda and deception. The ghetto was

developed as a “model ghetto” and an old folks’ home for rich and

privileged Jews. At different times it known as Theresienbad (Spa

Terezin), Reichsaltersheim (State Home for the Aged) and

Paradeisghetto.3 In 1944 the Germans gave the Red Cross a tour of

Terezin in order to prove that reports of the horrid conditions in

concentration camps and ghettos were exaggerated. During the Red

Cross’ visit the Germans handed out extra food and even permitted concerts, lectures, and art

shows (including lectures on Plato and Kant).4

The truth was Terezin was not the ‘paradise

ghetto,’ rather it served as a transition point for

Auschwitz. The Nazis convinced wealthy Jews to

buy into Terezin with the promise that they

would be protected and that their possessions

would be reimbursed once inside the camp. Yet,

once the Jews had entered Terezin none of these

promises were kept, and in fact many were shipped off to other camps farther in the East.

Terezin, did, however, stand as one of the best propaganda machines for the Nazis. The prisoners

Figure 1 Hearse by Bedřrich Fritta. Green, Gerald. 1978. "The Artists of Terezin." (New York: Hawthorne Publishing), 59.

Figure 2 Quarters of the Aged by Bedřich Fritta. Green, Gerald. 1978. "The Artists of Terezin." (New York: Hawthorne Publishing), 109.

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were forced to write letters back home and to relatives abroad stating the pleasant surroundings

and even, after being sent to Auschwitz, made them write letters back to the Jews at Terezin

encouraging them to come out East and “visit” them.5

The artists of Terezin found themselves at the middle of this complex system. Otto

Ungar, Bedřich Fritta, Leo Haas, and Karel Fleischmann were the main contributors of the

paintings found at Terezin.6 They were Jewish artists who had been rounded up and placed in the

ghetto/concentration camp of Terezin and put to work in the construction office. Their main

duties were the creation of artworks “for use as decorations in the homes of camp officials” and

also “prepared sketches for building projects undertaken in the ghetto.”7 Bedřich Taussig—pen

name Fritta—was head draftsman in the construction office and recruited many of the artists of

Terezin. During the day, officially, they were busy creating charts for the SS leaders.8 The artists

also worked in secret on their own pieces to “record the truth about Terezin.”9 At night, when the

SS guard were not looking, or in the cover of crowds, Haas, Fritta, and others created clandestine

art.10 The artwork, once completed, did not get the same treatment as their official pieces. Rather,

then posted around the camp, these were hidden. Haas and Fritta hid theirs in wall paneling and

buried in a large tin the farmyard, respectively.11 After the war ended, Haas, one of the few

survivors, recovered the paintings many of which have been donated to the Prague Jewish

Museum.12

Following the war and the recovery of the paintings, Haas recorded his experience in the

article, “The Affair of the Painters of Terezin.” He recounts:

Especially Fritta and myself were constantly encouraged to create this unique documentary testimony. The members of different cells would use the traditional Czech saying “Write this down, Kisch!” Well, this encouragement was not necessary. Even before this I had not been idle when, after my arrest is Ostrava, I had been working in the construction of the first European camp for Jews (in 1939-1940) in Nisko on the San. I had brought from there a thick folder of documentary sketches made in a similar way. I

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was driven by the shocking experience within the ghetto walls, to be constantly on the look-out, wherever I could, sketch pad in hand.13

What is interesting to note about Haas’ own account of his work is the way in which he describes

it, specifically as a form of documentary. He does this again later when he states his motivation

for creating such work: “We thought that in this way something of our documentary material

would survive, even if we did not.”14 Recording what occurred at Terezin was necessary in part

because of the shocking nature of the conditions, but also it seems, in order to counteract the

false depiction of Terezin as a favorable place, to tell others the truth of the camp, and the

treatment of the Jews.

While Haas calls the paintings documentary, an examination of the paintings themselves

suggests that mere documentation of the facts might not

be the exclusive outcome of the paintings. For example,

one painting, entitled “Portrait,” reveals much more than

the standard portrait. Instead of a depiction of an upper-

class person surrounded by their wealth, Fleischmann

focuses on a reclining figure who appears to be close to

death. It is clear that this is no ordinary portrait but rather

reveals something beyond the mere appearance of a special

person. Further, this painting, and many others, cannot be called documentary in a strictly

mimetic sense. They are not done in a realistic style, that is, unlike a map or courtroom sketch

that tries to depict exactly what is seen, these paintings are done in a style that reveals and

conveys bitterness, struggle, and sadness. The truth the artists want to reveal is a complex,

emotional, as well as a factual, one. For example there is little difference between the figure of

Figure 3 Portrait by Karel Fleischmann. Green, Gerald. 1978. "The Artists of Terezin."( New York: Hawthorne), 146.

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the person and his surroundings; the man portrayed fade into the earth (as he is dying), or a way

in which he is treated by the Nazis (as a mere object that belongs in the dirt).

Another example, “Going to Work,” literally depicts

people off to work (they are carrying shovels and heading in

a direction). The exaggerated features of the prisoners, the

blurred bourndaries separating individual bodies, and the

fading at the end of the line into jumbled darkness suggests

that the artsis were not producing mere factual

representations, but paintings that conveyed the suffering of

priosoners through manipulated features. The artists, then, depicted the ineffable: the horror,

numbness, depravity of the situation of these workers,

specifically that they were not merely going to their usual 9-5

jobs, but rather were risking death, being treated as sub-human

and exploited in their new jobs. In the paintings of Terezin,

many of the living subjects are portrayed as if they were dead,

or as skeleton-like figures. “Transport to the East,” for

example, portrays the subjects as weighed down by some

invisible force.

The paintings of Terezin not only assist in the

revelation of the true conditions of Terezin, they also contain a haunting aesthetic quality. While

most of these works are used to illuminate discussions of the Holocaust, I want to introduce and

expose them to traditional aesthetic theories. I focus on these paintings are of particular interest

because they were created during the Holocaust. Art created after the Holocaust fits the general

Figure 4 Going to Work by Bedřich Fritta. Green, Gerald. 1978. "The Artists of Terezin." (New York: Hawthorne Publishing), 103.

Figure 5 Transport to the East by Leo Haas. Green, Gerald. 1978, "The Artists of Terezin." (New York: Hawthorne Publishing), 110.

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and ubiquitous descriptions of art as educational, or cathartic: post-Holocaust art teaches us

about the horrors of the Holocaust and puts us in the shoes of those who faced the gas chambers.

In doing so it alerts us to the conditions of concentration camps and assists in the prevention of

further events occurring. Further, it allows the spectator to react to images and depictions of the

events and in that way grieve. Art that is created during the Holocaust, however, seems to pose

more problems for these ideas and others found in the prevalent art theories. Therefore, exploring

art created during the Holocaust is potentially fruitful insofar as solving or understanding the

unique issues it illuminates offers the potential for new perspectives on the prevalent art theories,

as well as the art in particular.

Ideal Spectators

One place where the paintings of Terezin are particularly illuminating is in their inclusion

into the discussion of ideal spectators of art. A spectator is a crucial element of an aesthetic

experience, to some philosophers, the most integral component. French Phenomenologist, Mikel

Dufrenne, for example, argues that while the artist is important, and can say that she has created

a work, it is not until that art has an audience, that the art finds “its own full reality.”15 Kant, as

well, stresses the importance of the spectator, or in his case the judge. For Kant, the artwork can

only be judged as such when it is presented in front of a rational being.16 Common sense can also

reveal the importance of a spectator of art, for example art, once finished, is presented to the

public in a museum, on a wall, in front of an audience, and so forth.17

I want to note early on that the description of spectator by all philosophers mentioned is

ideal. I am going to examine two key features that all our philosophers agree create the

experience of an ideal spectator: 1) the ideal spectator’s imagination is engaged in such a way

that she is capable of receiving a moral education and, 2) the ideal spectator can and will

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maintain a proper mental distance from the artwork. I will, shortly, outline and describe each of

these factors, for now I want to acknowledge that these factors constitute the ideal experience for

the spectator. This does not necessarily mean that if one is unable to maintain or have access to

these conditions that she is not a spectator of art per se. A spectator unable to maintain the

mental distance required for the ideal experience of art may be merely a non-ideal spectator

rather than not a spectator. For instance, imagine that an art lover visits an art gallery; she takes

her time in front of each piece, contemplating the colors and perspectives of the work. She

considers possible influences on the painting and potential meanings; such a spectator can be

called ideal. Another visitor is meeting a blind date at the same gallery. She is too nervous or

involved in getting to know her new companion to properly or ideally spectate the art. She

glances at the works but it is not her focus. Would we say she is not a spectator of art? Some

might, insofar as she doesn’t seem to truly spectator art but rather ignores it or uses it as a venue

for a date. Another possible way of viewing her experience is that she is not an ideal spectator;

she is, after all, still looking at the artworks. While the debate whether the two viewers’

experience art is important, for my purposes I want to note that the spectators and their

experience that I will be discussing is the ideal. In my conclusion I will explore possibilities for a

non-ideal situation.

Since a spectator is important for the work of art, we must articulate the exact role of the

ideal spectator. I will focus on what I see to be the major contribution of imagination to the role

of the spectator: education, specifically a moral education. According to scholars like Anne

Shepard and Matthew Kiern, imagination can be employed as tool of moral education in

paintings. Sheppard argues, “Imagination…enables us to see and feel as though we were present

at events represented or described…such imagination is worth cultivating for the insight that it

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can give us into other people’s lives.”18 Here, Sheppard is pointing to imagination’s ability to

extend our thinking to things or people beyond what is represented. For example, Van Gogh’s

painting “A Pair of Shoes,” is very simply, a painting of dirty shoes. Yet, as Martin Heidegger

argues in The Origin of the Work of Art, the painting reveals something more than mere

footwear.19 Rather, Heidegger suggests that these shoes reveal the world of the peasant insofar as

we can, for example, look at their dilapidated nature and imagine the hardworking person that

must put them on every day and trudge off to work. We can see the dirt caked on them and

imagine the owner struggling every day in the fields for his work; we can put ourselves in the

peasant’s shoes.

The reason that I, or anyone who views the painting, can imagine the world of the peasant

is not because I am a peasant or necessarily have the similar struggles of the peasant. In fact, one

could argue that I could not understand Van Gogh’s work because I have never worked in the

fields all day in order to feed my family. However, as Kieran points out, I can and do transcend

my own experiences and therefore, understand the plight of the peasant. The possibility for such

a unique experience is due to the imaginative element in art:

Art engages one’s sympathetic imagination with regard to various types of people in possible situations. Thus, an artwork may encourage us to consider and to become open to people, dilemmas, and states of affairs we might otherwise have dismissed out of hand. In this way…art may contribute to our moral thinking and outlook.20

Further, such a consideration is not possible if left merely to our capacity for reason; it is only

because imagination allows me to picture such an event and then report back to reason, that such

a judgment could occur.

In Love’s Knowledge, Martha Nussbaum echoes the suggestion that a type of art,

specifically fictional narratives, can serve as a type of moral education via the reader’s

imagination. In reading fiction, one is able to see certain situations in a more robust way, as well

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as perceive a greater number of possibilities of action.21 Nussbaum argues that fiction can open

us up to experiences that we may not have in our everyday life and in doing so prepare us for

either experiences we may have later, or else give us insight into experiences that we could never

have but are important nonetheless.

The new experiences that are provided in fiction are important, according to Nussbaum,

because the experience of readership is a moral activity because it can cultivate moral activity

and become a test for correctness of real-life judgment and responses.22 She argues that by

interpreting a play or novel, for example, one is involved in a kind of sympathetic reason giving

that is highly characteristic of morality and therefore, that our reading of novels and stories is a

valuable part of moral development.23 Nussbaum suggests that engaging a work of fiction is a

way of cultivating her moral agency. A reader is first able to see new positions that she was not

able to before and therefore, thinking about new experiences and how one should respond or act

within them.

This practice is very much connected to imagination insofar as our very reading of novels

is a practice for the imaginative skills that are required in our everyday moral deliberations. For

example, novels are often rich with detail and complexity, in ways that very much mirror our real

life, as well as our real life moral dilemmas. In order to deliberate about what to do in the face of

complexity, we must explore it with our imagination. The content, then, of novels allows us to

practice for future moral decisions because it can mirror real life but also extend it by giving us

new possibilities to imagine and contemplate.

In addition to the mystery and complexity found in fictional narratives, we also undertake

the imaginative activity of putting ourselves into another world and another’s shoes, which is

very characteristic of our real life moral decision making process. Nussbaum writes,

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“Interpreting a novel or play involves one, indeed, in a kind of sympathetic reason-giving that is

highly characters of morality for we ask ourselves, as we try to enter the plot, why the characters

do what they do, and we are put off of our inquires lead to nothing but mystery and

arbitrariness.”24 Since many of the imaginative activities involved in moral decision making are

performed by the reader in her study of fictional narratives, Nussbaum argues that exposure to

these literature works can train one for future moral decision making.

Nussbaum, and other scholars who similarly proclaim the educational efficacy of

imagination, do not argue that imagination alone is sufficient for one’s moral education. Even in

the examples mentioned, other cognitive factors are at work. For instance, when reading a novel,

or contemplating a work of art, one might tap into her memory and bring forth instances that

remind her of the artwork. This memory may help the spectator reflect on what she did in that

situation, or what is being depicted here. Imagination, then, is necessary but not sufficient for

education through artwork. Necessary because the activities of perspective taking, contemplating

possibilities, and so forth need imagination, but not sufficient because information like the

content of those possibilities often come from elsewhere like lived experience.

The idea of imagination as an educator of morality via art is not unique to contemporary

thinkers like Nussbaum, but is present in traditional aesthetic theories as well. For example, in

the Republic Plato argues that music is an educator of the soul and warns against exposing

children to improper music (that is, music that promotes vices). 25 Surely art would not be

shunned if it was an impotent educator. Further, because Plato argues that music is an educator

of the soul, and can either promote virtue or vice, we can understand art’s education as a moral

one. But most interestingly, is that we can tie this educational aspect of art to imagination. For

example, Plato argues that poems that are allegorical cannot be allowed into the ideal State

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because a young person will be unable to judge which poem is allegorical and what is meant to

be taken literal and will, therefore, possibly pursue vice instead of virtue.26 Here, Plato seems to

be deriding imagination insofar as it could be responsible for the youth’s inability to distinguish

allegorical from literal (the youth imagines, for example, the existence of a cave with prisoners

in it, yet is unable to bring reason into the picture and extract the real truth of the story).

However, I want to argue that, even if Plato derides imagination, he nonetheless reveals

imagination’s role in one’s moral education, here, though as possibly promoting vice. This idea

is consistent with his scorn for art because it promotes illusory or imitative truths, as opposed to

real truths. Again, it would seem that imagination’s role in the illusory is a corruptive element,

yet this does not reveal that imagination is not involved in one’s moral education.27

Kant echoes the idea that art can educate one’s morality by means of imagination. For

example, in Section 59 of Kant’s Critique of the Power of Judgment, Kant argues that art is a

symbol of morality. While art is not morality, it appears that a study of art can in fact be a sort of

study of morality insofar as one is a symbol for the other. Furthermore, Kant places the burden

for this connection on imagination’s role in his theory of taste. He writes, “Taste as it were

makes possible the transition from sensible charm to the habitual moral interest without too

violent a leap by representing imagination even in its freedom as purposively determinable.”28

Pragmatist John Dewey ends his book Art as Experience with the strong claim that “art is

more moral than moralities.”29 His argument is that morality is often treated as an inflexible

policy of rules that consecrates the status quo. Art, on the other hand, leave opens the possibility

of creation and flexibility in morality because it goes beyond mere habitation and explores the

possibility of human experience and relations without making them conform to certain rules or

laws. Therefore, art, unlike habituation and the status quo, allows for true morality. Additionally,

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it is imagination that serves as the foundation for Dewey’s argument concerning morality and art.

He argues that the “preoccupation with imaginative experience constitutes the heart of the moral

potency of art. From it proceeds the liberating and uniting power of art.”30

Finally, Dufrenne, as mentioned earlier, spends a great deal of time enumerating the

connections between the spectator and the work. He argues: “By inviting man to be a witness,

the work develops the human in him.”31 Dufrenne later defines what this “human” development

is, specifically, raising the individual to what is universal in a human and even calls art “an

education in attention.”32 If art, as Dufrenne argues, assists one in revealing what is universally

human, or develop one’s own humanity, surely this would include a development of one’s

morality: in paying attention to one’s humanity, and the humanity of others (something he also

addresses), then one would be alerted to the moral aspect of humanity as well. Again, we fine

imagination at the center of this educational process. Dufrenne writes, “[when] he imagines, the

witness penetrates the world of the work.”33 As we just saw, it is only when the witness or

spectator enters the work that education ensues, and as we see here, it is imagination that allows

for such penetration.

It is important to note that this moral education via artwork concerns the spectator alone.

It is obvious from the previously discussed philosopher’s that it is the role of the spectator who is

concerned in the education process: it is the young spectator that must be shielded from the

improper teaching of music, it will be the observer’s mental faculties that are freed to see the

symbolism of beautiful art, it is the one who can step back from the undergoing of an experience

in order to spectate and it is the one having the imaginative experience that reveals the liberating

nature of art.34

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Although all of our philosophers speak to art’s ability to educate morally, it is important

that I again note such a situation is ideal for these thinkers. One could argue, for instance, that a

painting of a lake is not intended to educate but merely decorate. There are some that might say

the lake painting isn’t art, but decoration or craft. Ideally though, especially for the spectators’

experience, the artwork should at least be able to or offer the possibility of education to the

spectator. Art needn’t always educate, ideally it can. This education can be varied: perhaps it is

knowledge of an event or experience the spectator has never had or maybe it is further insight

into human nature of awakens in the spectator a feeling or response she didn’t expect thereby

giving some form of self-knowledge. If artwork, ideally, offers the experience of a moral

education, how does such an offering come to terms with the paintings of Terezin, especially

given these paintings that have as their express purpose education for the spectator? It seems

they might be ideal for our spectators, which we will investigate.

The second feature that constitutes an ideal spectator is her detached or distance position

from the artwork. This feature is again ubiquitous though it is Plato is the first to assign a

distance from art, though differently than his later aesthetic brethren. For Plato, the spectator

should have an extreme amount of distance from art due to art’s noxious nature, so extreme that

he even, at one point, bans artists from his ideal State. Even if the arts are allowed, we still find a

distance required for the Platonic spectator. According to Plato, “the spectator is the last of the

rings which, as I am saying, receive the power of the original magnet from one another.”35 Here,

in the Ion we find that Plato situates the spectator far from the divine inspiration of the gods; if

the individual was closer she would be either the rhapsode or the artist. Therefore, the spectator

is defined by her distance from the process of the gods.

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The need for a spectator to be detached or distanced from the artwork is also found in

Kant’s theory of aesthetics. Kant argues that the satisfaction of a judgment of the beautiful must

be without interest. He defines interest as “anything that is or that could be at stake, for us or

someone else, in the existence of the thing.”36 In order for one to have a pure judgment of the

beautiful, according to Kant, one cannot have any interest in the existence of the thing, nor in the

way in which it pleases one’s senses (this would make the judgment of the agreeable), or in the

ways one uses the object (this would make it a judgment of the good). Rather, in order to have a

pure judgment of the beautiful, it cannot be mixed with any amount of interest.37 We can,

therefore, understand the proper perspective of the spectator as one that is detached and removed

from the object.

Dewey, as well, posits a proper, distanced, perspective for the spectator, though perhaps

more implicitly than his above-mentioned brethren. In “Having an Experience,” Dewey offers an

account of the proper way one has an experience. He argues that any experience involves various

steps and actions, yet stresses that the experience, or rather an experience, is not and cannot be

found in an individual step.38 Rather, what is necessary is that one understands the steps, as well

as the relationship between the steps and the consequences of those steps. He argues: “To put

one’s hand in the fire that consumes is not necessarily to have an experience.”39 He continues by

deriding the experience of a child insofar as she cannot grasp the breadth of her actions because

she has no past experience to compare it to, nor any idea of the future it could bring about.

Dewey, therefore, argues that one cannot merely “undergo” an experience, or focus on the

“undergoing” of the experience but must perceive the experience with more breadth and

richness. One must, therefore, step back from the particular actions and contemplate the ways in

which her actions weave together and project into the future; only then is it an experience. Since,

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as the title of Dewey’s book suggests, art is an experience and Dewey offers the proper

perspective of an experience that demands a sort of distance (away from the particular action),

we again find the need for an aesthetic distance for the spectator in order to be a proper spectator

of art.

Finally, according to Dufrenne, one of the most important aspects of the spectator is that

she has the proper “aesthetic distance.” He writes, “The aesthetic object, too-indeed, especially-

must be perceived at a proper distance and not simply lived in the proximity of presence.”40 What

Dufrenne is pointing out here is that one cannot be too close to the art. The terms close, and

proximity do not necessarily mean a literal closeness (though this would surely pose some

problems for viewing the art. For example, if I pressed my eye against a Van Gogh painting I

would not properly view the artwork. Rather, I must step back and take in the whole painting to

get the proper perspective). Rather, what Dufrenne is gesturing at here, is that “aesthetic

perception requires a certain detachment.”41 By detachment Dufrenne is arguing that it is

necessary in art for one to sympathize with the character but she cannot identify with the

character. If she did, she would be transported into the action and she might try to intervene. For

example, if one, while viewing Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet, identified with Romeo, he might

jump on stage and stop Romeo from killing himself upon viewing Juliet’s supposedly dead body.

Rather, Dufrenne argues that the spectator must be able to find a distance from the artwork and

he attributes this ability to imagination: “aesthetic perception requires a certain detachment

which is lived by the body and its senses, but whose principle is found in the transcendental

imagination as a capacity to create distance.”42

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Ideally Spectating Terezin

The ideal spectator is recognized by her ability to receive a moral education and maintain

a proper distance in the spectator of art. Van Gogh’s “Shoes” or Shakespeare’s “Romeo and

Juliet,” offer examples of artworks that encourage this ideal spectating: by revealing the

suffering of the world of the peasant, I am open to an experience that is not my own; by seeing

Romeo and Juliet wrestle with familiar conflicts I gain greater understanding of my own. Yet,

what about the paintings of Terezin—paintings whose purpose was the expression of truth and

the revelation of suffering? Given their stated intent as providing a moral education of sorts, they

seem prime candidates for ideal spectating.

A potential complication for the ideal spectating of the Terezin paintings is the placement

of the paintings upon completion: they were either hidden in walls, buried in backyards or

smuggled out of the camps. In doing so the artists literally made it impossible for the work to be

spectated by anyone present in the camp. In this way there was not an ideal spectator involved in

the aesthetic experience, or at least the spectator was not a fellow camp inhabitant. Not only is

there a literal impossibility of an ideal spectator of the paintings of Terezin, but also a figurative

impossibility. The main features of the ideal spectator are to be educated morally while at the

proper distance or detachment; both are impossible for the inhabitants of Terezin. First, the

spectator cannot receive a moral education from the painting because she is unable to employ

imagination in order to sympathize with, or step in the shoes of, those in the paintings. The

reason for this inability is because the inhabitants of Terezin were already in those shoes. What

moral education is cultivated when one is surrounded by a complete lack of morality? How does

one sympathize with an image of a starving person when one is, herself, starving?

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Not only are the inhabitants unable to fulfill the imaginative process required for the ideal

spectating of art, they are also unable to achieve the proper aesthetic distance. Each aesthetic

theory, no matter how different the thinkers, all concluded that a distance or detachment was

necessary in order for one to be a proper spectator of art. Yet, certainly the inhabitants of Terezin

were unable to remove themselves from their surroundings and view art from its “proper”

perspective. The inhabitants were all too invested in what the images were depicting to have any

ambivalence as to the horrors presented; they were living them, not distant from them.

One could argue that the artists themselves were the ones who could spectate the art with

the proper distance and therefore function as ideal spectators of the paintings of Terezin.

However, the immediate burial of the art complicates such a possibility. While, perhaps some of

this was done for the sake of security, we find that the artists were thrilled to have their artwork

removed from the camp:

[D]rawings from us…were sent out of the ghetto by the same route that food and tobacco came in…we learned that…our works had been sent beyond the borders of the territories ruled by the Nazis. In our enthusiasm we undoubtedly underestimated the danger that had thereby increased.43

The artists wanted the artwork to leave Terezin and therefore not be viewed by their fellow

inhabitants. Surely, they could not have performed the role of the spectator if they intended it not

for their, nor the other inhabitant’s, eyes.

If there were no ideal spectators of the paintings of Terezin, or at least none in the ghetto,

what can be said about the paintings, especially in light of their intended educational value?

Here, we again find similarities between our various art theories. For Plato, a work without a

spectator is still considered a work of art. Since the gods, or the Muses, are credited with the

production of art, then we can, spectator or not, call the paintings of Terezin art. However, Plato

did find the spectator to be the place for the largest benefits and problems for art. Art was

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supposed to be spectated, if it was to promote virtue, and it was to be shunned, if it promoted

vice. Therefore, the power of art seems to be attributed to the spectator and her presence before

the work of art. Without a spectator, art appears to be nothing more than the workings of the

gods.

According to Kant it is the genius, or rather the spirit of the genius, present in the artist

that allows beautiful art to be created. Therefore, we find, again that art can be created without a

spectator. However, without the spectator we lose a great deal of the power of art. Judgments of

the beautiful, for example, offer the idea that the world has been ordered with our cognitive

faculties in mind. Without a spectator, and her mental faculties being stimulated in a free play,

we lose most of Kant’s aesthetic theory, in particular the transcendental possibilities that art can

usher forth.

Dewey also places the burden of the potency of art on the spectator insofar as she is the

one that must have the imaginative experience; without the spectator there can be no liberating or

uniting power of art. Despite the potency of art being linked to the spectator we can still maintain

that the artist creates art regardless of the existence of the spectator: the artist can still embody

possibilities even if no one is looking. Finally, as we already saw, and alluded to, Dufrenne

comes down the hardest on art without a spectator. Art can still be art, insofar as an artist created

it, however, without an audience it does not have complete reality. Therefore, similar to his

philosophical brethren, the aesthetic experience losses all its power without the spectator.

Even given the common thread between various aesthetic theories, the paintings of

Terezin reveal just how difficult it can be to actualize this ideal. Where does the burden for this

failure fall? Is it that these paintings are impotent art until the time that proper spectators can be

found and that the circumstances of ghetto life did not allow for the Jewish people to be

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spectators or that our aesthetic theories with their conception of ideal or objective criteria of

spectators is flawed and impossible? If it is the case that the ideal spectator of art has her

imagination stimulated in such a way that she can be morally educated and if the paintings of

Terezin have the explicit purpose of such an education, then the inhabitants of Terezin could not

have the ideal aesthetic experience. Though the experience might not be of an ideal spectator,

one could contend that a non-ideal experience of the art might have taken place. Perhaps, instead

the prisoners were able to appreciate the works of art in a sense that they gave the prisoner a

view of themselves that they were not privy to; a picture of the overall suffering of the camp,

rather than the individual suffering they so closely experienced. The aesthetic distance, then, may

not be ideal but the art would allow a form of detachment. Such a position may have been

possible, and may be possible now for survivors looking back, but it is unlikely for the prisoners

at the time given the quickness with which the paintings were removed from prisoners’ views.

Instead, the artists buried or smuggled out the work as quickly and surreptitiously as they were

being made.

Conclusion

What significance does the revelation that no one could have ideally spectated the

paintings of Terezin until after the war, or at the very least outside of Terezin hold? I would like

to suggest a number of possibilities: one, as I have alluded to, perhaps the work of art itself is at

issue. If it is the case that no one was able to be an ideal spectator of these paintings, a possibility

is that paintings don’t always have, at all times the possibility of an ideal spectator. The paintings

of Terezin, while buried, certainly didn’t have spectators, ideal or not. Rather, it seems that only

when the immediate suffering being depicted passed, was there the possibility to view these

paintings in an ideal way. The artwork, then, would be impotent, unable to fulfill the ideal

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conditions for the spectator and therefore, only later, would the paintings allow for the ideal

experience.

A second possibility concerns spectators themselves, more specifically the problematic

nature of ideal spectators per se. Although the traditional aesthetic theories make their spectators

easy to replicate, they are in fact not. If the prisoners of Terezin are not fit to be proper

spectators, who is? Perhaps those who saw the few that were smuggled out? But they might have

had too much or not enough distance from the events depicted to be morally educated. For

instance, if Nazis were the spectators, they would not have their idea distance from the events

depicted; they may see them as propaganda or lies. Others might be too close and when viewing

the images took them only for their factual content and not been able to appreciate them as works

of art.

A third significance I find in the discussion of the paintings of Terezin and ideal

spectators focuses on imagination. Since it is the cognitive capacity appealed to as responsible

for the features of ideal spectating, perhaps it is a failure or issue with one’s imagination that

creates the impossibility of fulfilling the ideal. It is possible that living in those conditions, under

such a pervasive level of oppression dampens or alters one’s capacity for imagination. Certainly

people label the atrocities of the Holocaust as being ‘unimaginable’ and perhaps we can

understand that description in a new way: imagination is not capable of flourishing or achieving

its ideal function.

One could argue that it is unfair to use the Holocaust as a case study to test these aesthetic

theories and therefore, the fact that the paintings of Terezin do not conform to the major theories

is unsurprising and need not be considered. The Holocaust, after all, is an extreme series of

events, the likes of which have not been seen before or again. Because of the mass number of

21

people tortured, deported and killed we cannot and should not use this example as a test case.

Therefore, our objective criterion for ideal spectators remains intact. However, one could also

argue that genocide is not that extreme of an example. It might be to a citizen of the West but

continues to unfold in secret, or is ignored, in many countries throughout the world and is not

their extreme. Further, any aesthetic theory which claims to discuss all artwork and the

spectating of said artwork should be able to apply to any example, from Picasso to Duchamp to

the ghetto. Often time the same paintings or painters are appealed to in order to prove points

about the merits or flaws of an aesthetic theory (e.g. Mona Lisa, Duchamp, etc.). What is not

often discussed or elevated to the level of an aesthetic discussion are artworks created under

oppression. Their museum placement is most often in historical halls to teach about events that

occurred and the suffering that took place. While such exhibits are important, I think these

paintings also deserve recognition and discussion within aesthetic circles precisely because they

can challenge or bring to light issues that more traditional examples do not.44

Bibliography

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Dufrenne, Mikel, trans. Edward Casey. The Phenomenology of the Aesthetic Experience. Evanston: Northwestern University, 1973.

Gilbert, Martin. Holocaust Journey. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997.

Green, Gerald. The Artists of Terezin. New York: Hawthorne Books, 1978.

Haas, Leo. “The Affair of the Painters of Terezin.” In Art from the Ashes: A Holocaust Anthology, edited by Lawrence Langer. New York: Oxford Up, 1995, 670-678.

Heidegger, Martin. Trans. Albert Hofstadter. Poetry, Language, Thought. “The Origin of the Work of Art.” New York: Perennial Classics, 2001.

Hofstadter, L., & Kuhns, R. F. Philosophies of art and beauty, selected readings in aesthetics from Plato to Heidegger. Chicago: University Of Chicago Press, 1976.

22

Kant, Immanuel, trans. Paul Guyer. Critique of the Power of Judgment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.

Kieran, M. “Art, imagination, and the cultivation of morals.” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 54 (1996): 337-351.

Langer, Lawrence. Art from the Ashes. New York: Oxford UP, 1995.

Nussbaum, Martha. Love’s Knowledge: Essays on Philosophy and Literature. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.

Sheppard, A. “The role of imagination in Aesthetic Experience.” Journal of Aesthetic Education, 25 (1991): 35-42.

1 Green, Gerald. The Artists of Terezin.(New York: Hawthorne Books, 1978), 39.2 Lawrence, Art from the Ashes, 664.3 Gilbert, Martin. Holocaust Journey. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), 84.4 Green, The Artists of Terezin, 31-35.5 Green, The Artists of Terezin, 30-31.6 Green, The Artists of Terezin, 3.7 Lawrence, Art from the Ashes, 666.8 Green, The Artists of Terezin 44.9 Green, The Artists of Terezin 100. 10 Green, The Artists of Terezin 100.11 Green, The Artists of Terezin, 111.12 Green, The Artists of Terezin , 123. A special thanks to Marquette University Center for Transnational Justice who awarded me a research grant for the 2015-2015 academic year that allowed me to travel to Terezin and the Jewish Museum of Prague to continue my research on the Paintings of Terezin. 13 Haas, Leo. “The Affair of the Painters of Terezin.” Art from the Ashes. (New York: Oxford Up, 1995), 671.14 Haas, “The Affair of the Painters,” 671.15 Dufrenne, Mikel, trans. Edward Casey. The Phenomenology of the Aesthetic Experience. (Evanston: Northwestern University, 1973), 46.16 Because the judgment requires a free play of the judge’s mental faculties. Therefore, without a judge and her mental faculties, the artwork would not be beautiful (or at least judged to be beautiful). 17 I am not, here, arguing that an artwork is only an artwork proper if it is set in front of audience. Rather, I am merely revealing the importance of a spectator. 18 Sheppard, A. “The role of imagination in Aesthetic Experience.” Journal of Aesthetic Education, 25(1991): 37-8.19 Heidegger, Martin, trans. Albert Hofstadter. Poetry, Language, Thought. “The Origin of the Work of Art.” (New York: Perennial Classics, 2001), 35.20 Kieran, M. “Art, imagination, and the cultivation of morals.” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 54(1996): 338.21 Nussbaum, Martha. Love’s Knowledge: Essays on Philosophy and Literature. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 48.22 Haas, “The Affair of the Painters,” 339.23 Haas, “The Affair of the Painters,”345-6.24 Nussbaum, Love’s Knowledge, 346.25 Hofstadter, L., & Kuhns, R. F.. Philosophies of art and beauty, selected readings in aesthetics from Plato to Heidegger. (Chicago: University Of Chicago Press, 1976), 8. Hereafter referred to as H&K.26 Hofstadter, H&K, 11.27 I would also like to point out that for Plato the only real truth are the forms which exist in some sort of Platonic Heaven. This idea, despite the way in which he ties it to understanding and reason, seems to be wholly dependent on imagination. If I do not have access to the forms, I must imagine them somewhere; I imagine a perfect chair, for example. If we understand Platonic imagination in this way, then it is imagination, and not reason that actually leads to true moral education.28 Kant, Immanuel, trans. Paul Guyer. Critique of the Power of Judgment. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 5:354.29 Dewey, John. Art as Experience. (New York: Penguin Group, 2005), 362.30 Dewey, Art as Experience, 363.31 Dufrenne, The Phenomenology of Aesthetic Experience, 60. 32 Dufrenne, The Phenomenology of Aesthetic Experience, 63.33 Dufrenne, The Phenomenology of Aesthetic Experience, 59.34 I am not suggesting that the artist cannot become a spectator and in that way have this experience. However, an artist qua artist does not participate in said actions.35 Hofstadter, H&K, 56.36 Kant, Critique of the Power of Judgment, 5:204.37 Kant, Critique of the Power of Judgment, 5:205.38 Dewey, Art as Experience, 45-6.39 Dewey, Art as Experience,, 46.40 Dufrenne, The Phenomenology of Aesthetic Experience, 358.41 Dufrenne, The Phenomenology of Aesthetic Experience, 359.42 Dufrenne, The Phenomenology of Aesthetic Experience, 359.43 Haas, “The Affair of the Painters,” 671.44 Thank you to the editor and reviewers of this article for your insightful and helpful comments, which undoubtedly challenged and improved my thoughts and work.