Comment by Barrin92
14 days ago
Art for much of human history was devotional, a lot of our greatest artworks today are still religious in nature. The idea that art solely is an act of rebellion rather than say worship, is a pretty modern idea that has produced some rather questionable art by the way.
Of course a great artist or poet can be a propagandist. Riefenstahl, Mann, a lot of German nationalists were great artists. One of the most famous works of Western poetry, The Aeneid is literally a propaganda work establishing a mythological foundation for the Roman Empire, Augustus and Caesar.
"The idea that art solely is an act of rebellion rather than say worship"
I did not say that and neither did Heine.
Most of his works were political. But this is not the same as propaganda, which is more like advertisement. With the tools of lying, deceiving and manipulating.
And whether "Triumph des Willens" and alike qualifies as art, I have a different opinion.
There is a difference between devotional art inspired by religion / mythical events long past (Aeneid etc.), and between the sort of propaganda that the modern totalitarian state demands, which usually centers around some living or freshly dead leader.
I'd be open to discussion where the exact limit is. Lenin died in the 1920s, Marx even earlier, but those two were frequently depicted in Communist propaganda of the 1980s.
So it is probably "hundreds of years".