Otto Dix

Otto Dix was a remarkable artist of the 20th century Germany. He occupied a lead position in the New Objectivity movement, turning away from the ideas of Romanticism and Expressionism toward a more acidic and non-sentimental perspective to reflect the harsh realities of the interwar German society. Though being a representative of the anti-expressionist movement, Dix incorporated numerous styles into his paintings and etchings, including Expressionism. His works were also influenced by Dadaism, Cubism and Futurism, all of which shaped the artist’s satirical and savage style.

Dix’s story started in his hometown of Gera (1906), where his arts and crafts apprenticeship began with his teacher, Carl Senff, giving life to Otto’s first landscapes. Shortly after finishing his apprentice studies, he applied to Dresden’s Academy for crafts and arts, as industrial crafts were greatly valued by the society of the pre-war era to the detriment of the fine arts. An important part of Dix’s vision was shaped in the First World War, as the artist volunteered to take part and actually earned distinctions fighting in the trenches. He documented the years of war by sending postcards which depicted the macabre fighting scenes, bombarded lands, and shell-shocked comrades.

As the artist described himself, he was a realist, and had an acute need to experience everything first hand, before he could transpose or convey any message within his paintings. He took a surprisingly detached approach to the trauma of the trenches, depicted thoroughly in his paintings such as The Skat Players (1920), but also subsequently in the etching collection titled Der Krieg (1924). Even though the artist was in the first line of fire in the World War I, he managed to find beauty in terror and destruction, and even to bring excitement where others would only see horrors of war. Dix was named a patron of the grotesque, but he embraced it and continued to expose the immorality and lack of ethics of the Weimar Republic.

The artist wished to portray the decay of the post-war life, as German bourgeoisie struggled through high inflation, unemployment, and the macabre display of war cripples and mutilated veterans. Frequent themes that the artist covered in his work, in his time, are the “fair ladies” of the time, often depicted nude, and their defects exaggerated to the point of caricature (Memory of the Halls of Mirrors in Brussels, 1920), soldiers mutilated in the war (Prague Street, 1920) or the horrific aftermaths of the battlefields (Crater field near Dontrien, 1924) and also depravity of the Weimar society (Metropolis, 1927-1928). As the dark days of the Nazis coming to power grew closer, Dix’s notoriety from the 1920’s fell apart, and his artworks were stripped of value and censored by the regime. He was removed from his position of university professor at Dresden Academy of Fine Arts, and his work was included in the Entartete Kunst (degenerate art) show, where all artworks that were not within the lines of the Nazi standards were displayed.

During the World War II, Dix had to tone down his characteristic style. He concentrated more on landscapes, to fit the requirements of the Fuhrer's laws. The artist was commissioned to fight again when the war was almost over, and was later imprisoned by the French. Coming home to a two-sided Germany, where the art world was bound by politics, Otto was torn between his professional relations in the East, and his home in the West. While Eastern Germany turned to the socialist aspect of art, focused on the labor theme, the Western Germany art world shifted toward the United States and new art movements, such as Abstract Expressionism. In a world where he did not fit anymore, Dix struggled to sell his art, as a sharp, distorted edge of his realistic style became blunt.

Otto Dix is regarded as a pivotal figure for the New Objectivity movement in Germany, who had the courage to portray the uncensored versions of two harsh wars and a bleak, depraved society in between, using his satirical and grotesque characters and themes to make a direct statement through his artwork.