All Intensive Purposes

Reading about Bill Reid's career in the art world prompted me to pick up The Rape of Europa, a history of the fate of art in (Europe in) World War II. It's a formidable book, and perhaps I would have had an easer time with it had I been paid more attention in my art-history class in college. The volume of art, and individuals stealing, fencing, trading and chasing it, caught up in World War II is truly overwhelming. The Germans thought hard about what to plunder before the Blitzkreig, and often only the competition between different Germans -- foremost among them buyers for Hitler and Goering -- slowed down the pace of acquisition. When the tide of the war changed, the focus changed to German efforts to move art ahead of the advancing Allied forces, and the Allied efforts to sweep it up. So much art was swept around in these currents that the task of telling its story must have been a daunting one. Just reading Lynn Nicholas's account is exhausting, and terribly sad.