Cornelius Gurlitt’s haunted treasure trove of art needs to be seen

Hated by the Nazis for their freedom and humanity, the paintings are neither poisoned gifts nor spoils of war but vital works of art

The art is innocent. It deserves to be seen. Whatever the tangle of crime and cruelty that lay behind Cornelius Gurlitt’s strange inheritance of a secret art collection from his father, who had worked for the Nazis as an art dealer, he finally did the right thing in leaving it to the Kunstmuseum Bern, and this excellent museum, which already has important works by artists such as Picasso and Paul Klee, is totally correct in accepting his bequest.

The more than 1,200 paintings and watercolours for which it will take responsibility are neither poisoned gifts nor macabre spoils, but important works of art that need to be taken out of their disreputable context and seen again simply as paintings. Some of the artists represented in this extraordinary collection lived before the Nazi era with which their works were to become entangled. Courbet, Monet and Manet had no conception of Europe’s 20th-century future. Why should there be some imaginary stain on Monet’s Waterloo Bridge?

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