Ap Art History

Helen (Jiawen) Zhang

Period 3 A.P. Art History

Monuments Man Assignment

The movie Monuments Man was based on a novel written by Edsel called The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History. Since this novel is based on real historical events, the movie is accurate on the overall plot. All the names of the main participants were changed and the details of the events are adjusted for the needs of dramatic effect in the movie. The movie talks about a Western Allied group trying to search and recover the hidden art by Adolf Hitler during WWII. This mission is directly appointed by the contemporary American president Roosevelt with the help of Allied countries all of which really happened during the war.

As present in the movie, this group’s goal is to preserve the record of art history. Yet the original plan of this group is not only to search for the lost arts but also to protect the important sites of arts and even church. The mission of protecting art is not the primary goal of the group. In the movie, the main group is only made up of seven people, yet in real life, the group has more that three hundred with people from different fields like artists, architects, etc. The group was under a Western Allied unit called MFAA. The movie depicts a man called Frank Stokes who serves as sole creator of the whole Monument Man idea. But as historical record showed another man called George Stout also served as the job of the creator of Monuments man which was completely deleted in the film. Furthermore, according to the book The Rape of Europa, the mission was carried out individually. It was never a group mission which was emphasized in the movie.

There were major locations in the movie where the group found hundred of art pieces. The Monument Man did find gold in a salt mine art Merker which was showed in the movie. It is also very accurate that the group found the Ghent Altarpiece and The Madonna of Burges at the salt...