One of the watercolors, “Mountain Chapel” (painted in 1909, when Hitler was 20), was–ironically–commissioned by a Jewish art dealer for a Jewish lawyer. The work violates practically every rule of Composition 101: don’t put the spire dead center! Don’t let the mountains and the clouds slant in the same direction! Don’t have another building zoom in weirdly from the edge! Is there anything in it that tells you why he became a monster? Unless you’re a combination art critic, forensic detective and psychiatrist, no. But the picture does help prove that Hitler was a frustrated no-talent in art who, tragically, turned out to have an evil gift in politics. That lesson is worth a little wall space.
