________________________________________________________________________________________________
“It is good that we now all have clarity.”
Donald Trump did not utter these words.
Were he to do so, his advisors would certainly
have to coach him on the correct pronunciation
of the word, clarity.
But before identifying the source
of the quote, we must get symbolic.
Donald Trump did not utter these words.
Were he to do so, his advisors would certainly
have to coach him on the correct pronunciation
of the word, clarity.
But before identifying the source
of the quote, we must get symbolic.
Let
us consider the estate of an eccentric loner who squirreled away one
billion dollars worth of what we will call "Glignots."
Upon
his death, the Glignots are willed to a collector in a foreign country.
But a distant cousin of our eccentric loner contests the will claiming
her eighty-one year-old cousin was mentally unfit.
When her challenge
is rejected by the court, the President of the International Society of
Glignots declares "It is good now that we all have clarity."
Case closed.
No one but members
of the Avaricious Cousin Society
would question the validity of the quote.
Our eccentric loner will rest in peace
Our eccentric loner will rest in peace
and his gargantuan collection of Glignots
will be exhibited for all the world to see.
BUT NOW LET REALITY BE OUR GUIDE
***************************
To refer to Cornelius Gurlitt (pictured above) as an eccentric loner would
be serious understatement. But when the German man who lived alone and
had no friends died at the age of eighty-one, he did will his
multi-billion dollar collection of hoarded art to a Museum in Bern,
Switzerland.
To refer to this collection as hoarded art would be understatement of the highest order and most worthy of serious head-scratching.
Cornelius inherited fourteen hundred pieces of art by the likes of Picasso, Cezanne, Matisse... from his father, Hildebrandt Gurlitt.
In 1941, the elder Gurlitt was hand-picked by Joseph Goebbels to be "art dealer to the Fuhrer."
It was not for purely aesthetic reasons that Adolph Hitler had his own personal art dealer. It was primarily to generate funds for the Nazi cause.
Does this mean that Hildebrandt would buy low and sell high?
Not necesarily.
Sometimes, the art was simply stolen or Gurlitt pere (or his goons) used gunpoint negotiating skills. It is no secret that the original owners of this art were members of the Jewish race.
Yet, when Hildebrandt died in 1956, there were more than fourteen hundred pieces of art still in his possession. All of them became the property of his son, Cornelius.
All of this art was presumed missing until 2012 when it was discovered in a rundown Munich apartment where Cornelius lived alone with a bunch of cats and a whole lot of canvass.
The German Government vowed to return any piece of ill-gotten Gurlitt art to its rightful owners or their heirs. At best, that vow is 95% hogwash.
The woman most responsible for that vow is the Culture Minister of Germany, Monika Gruetters.
When Cornelius Gurlitt died in 2014, he willed his entire art hoard to a museum in Switzerland. By today's art standards, it is worth over two billion dollars.
Germany had much quicker results in resolving challenges to the will when Cornelius's distant cousin, Uta Werner, lost her case on appeal last month. That is when Monika Gruetters said:
I do not think clarity
To refer to this collection as hoarded art would be understatement of the highest order and most worthy of serious head-scratching.
Cornelius inherited fourteen hundred pieces of art by the likes of Picasso, Cezanne, Matisse... from his father, Hildebrandt Gurlitt.
In 1941, the elder Gurlitt was hand-picked by Joseph Goebbels to be "art dealer to the Fuhrer."
It was not for purely aesthetic reasons that Adolph Hitler had his own personal art dealer. It was primarily to generate funds for the Nazi cause.
Does this mean that Hildebrandt would buy low and sell high?
Not necesarily.
Sometimes, the art was simply stolen or Gurlitt pere (or his goons) used gunpoint negotiating skills. It is no secret that the original owners of this art were members of the Jewish race.
Yet, when Hildebrandt died in 1956, there were more than fourteen hundred pieces of art still in his possession. All of them became the property of his son, Cornelius.
All of this art was presumed missing until 2012 when it was discovered in a rundown Munich apartment where Cornelius lived alone with a bunch of cats and a whole lot of canvass.
The German Government vowed to return any piece of ill-gotten Gurlitt art to its rightful owners or their heirs. At best, that vow is 95% hogwash.
The woman most responsible for that vow is the Culture Minister of Germany, Monika Gruetters.
When Cornelius Gurlitt died in 2014, he willed his entire art hoard to a museum in Switzerland. By today's art standards, it is worth over two billion dollars.
Germany had much quicker results in resolving challenges to the will when Cornelius's distant cousin, Uta Werner, lost her case on appeal last month. That is when Monika Gruetters said:
“It is good that we now all have clarity.”
I do not think clarity
would apply to any
of the rightful heirs
(literally thousands of people)
of the members of the Jewish race
who had their legally-owned art
stolen by the Nazis.
I do not think clarity
would apply to anyone
who believes in both
aesthetic appreciation and JUSTICE
(probably more than six million people.)
________________________________________________________________________________________________
Footnotes
This is the eleventh page involving Cornelius Gurlitt.
I do hope that whimsy does not totally obscure
clarity about a multi-generation billion dollar theft
effecting the entire globe.
A page related to this subject
was posted on
May 7, 2017
The first of the Gurlitt pages is
here.
The next of the Gurlitt pages is
there.
The next Trump page is
almost everywhere.
This is the eleventh page involving Cornelius Gurlitt.
I do hope that whimsy does not totally obscure
clarity about a multi-generation billion dollar theft
effecting the entire globe.
A page related to this subject
was posted on
May 7, 2017
The first of the Gurlitt pages is
here.
The next of the Gurlitt pages is
there.
The next Trump page is
almost everywhere.
________________________________________________________________________________________________
No comments:
Post a Comment