1914-1918: Heritage Goes to War

From 1914 to 1918, French heritage destroyed or devastated by the ravages of war was sacralized and became a real instrument of propaganda.

Less than a year after the emblematic destruction of Louvain and Reims (August-September 1914), Paris was the scene of spectacular exhibitions intended as anti-German propaganda based on the exaltation of the damaged architectural and artistic heritage.

One of the first events took place in the spring of 1915 at the Trocadéro, within the Museum of Comparative Sculpture. It shows photographs of devastated monuments, displayed near plaster casts of historic monuments stamped before the war, the final testimonies of the partially or entirely destroyed originals. These casts are promoted by means of signage with an accusatory message: “Sculptures destroyed by the Germans.” The following year, the Petit Palais museum organized another event explicitly entitled “Exhibition of works of art mutilated or coming from regions devastated by the enemy”. In Dantesque scenography, decapitated and crippled statues and fragments of architecture torn apart by the bombs thrown at Verdun, Arras or Dunkirk appear to visitors as so many stigmata of the “fury of German vandalism”. The stated objective of these demonstrations was to inspire “even more anger against the invader and present direct testimony of the vandalism”.

These exhibitions were the embodiment of propaganda intended both to reach every French household and to convince neutral countries to get involved. In this sense, they constituted real ideological weapons.

Through caricatures, photographs and illustrations, the exhibition and the book retrace this staging of the destruction of monuments and the demonization of Kultur. They allow us to understand the diversity with which cultural antagonisms were represented in France and in allied countries.

• 17 x 24 cm
• 96 pages
• 55 illustrations
• Paperback, with flaps
• ISBN: 978-2-91554-2806

Text in French only

JEAN-MARC HOFMAN est commissaire de l’exposition, attaché de conservation et adjoint au conservateur de la galerie des moulages du musée des Monuments français. Il a notamment été commissaire associé de l’exposition « Viollet-le-Duc, les visions d’un architecte ».

Préface de Guy Amsellem.

Contributions de Corinne Bélier, Annette Becker, Claire Maingon, Cécilie Champy-Vinas, Sylvie Leray-Burimi, Judith Kagan.