ABSTRACT
Shortly after the Armistice ended the war and revolution rocked Germany, Karl Scheffler wrote an essay titled "Art and the Revolution", in which he addresses the state of German culture and how the war, peace agreement, and revolution would affect it. Scheffler reminds his readers that for a new German culture to emerge, it is not enough for art to change its form; the people who consume art must change their taste in order to create a climate that will sustain new art. Political interference in art was rife during the Wilhelmine Era, as the Kaiser famously tried to impose his taste on all Germans. In 1920, Scheffler delivered a lecture to Deutsche Werkbund to address the arts organization's diminished status since the war, though he also used the lecture to issue a broader critique of the state of German culture. Scheffler recognizes that the conservative element in Germany will not disappear and that conservative and avant-garde will always coexist.
