 |
| Self- Portrait as a Soldier, 1914 |
On October 30th and 31st, Project Staff will be giving a Gallery Talk at the St. Louis Art Museum on World War One Art and Artists in the Museum's collection. One of the artists featured in the talk is Otto Dix, who served as a machine gunner in the German Army during the war. Dix is known for using his art to depict the horrors of the war and as a tool to critique post-war German society.
Dix was born in Untermhaus, Germany, in 1891. From 1906-1910, he apprenticed with painter Carl Senff. In 1910, he entered the Dresden School of Arts and Crafts. In 1914, when World War One began, he, like many other German youths, enthusiastically joined the Army. Dix served in an Artillery unit on the Western front. In 1915, he was awarded the Iron Cross (second class) and was promoted to Sergeant for his heroism during the Autumn Battle. Over the next few years, Dix fought in numerous battles, including the Battle of the Somme. Needless to say, he experienced the horrors of war first-hand. Dix witnessed traumatic scenes of soldiers being killed and wounded all around him. Like many other German artists who served in the war (Max Beckmann, George Grosz, and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner), Dix was greatly affected by what he saw. As a result, by the end of the war, he had become a pacifists, a dramatic change from the nationalistic war supporter he was at the beginning of the war (featured in the
Self-Portrait above).
 |
The Skat Players, 1920
War Cripples (45% employable), 1920
|
Dix's transformation was very evident when he exhibited in the First International DaDa Fair in Berlin, Germany in 1920. Dada was a movement that began shortly after the start of the war. It was an international movement that used art as a method of protest against the bourgeois nationalist and imperialist interests that members believed were the root causes of the war. The movement was also critical of art and artists of the era whom they felt conformed to society rather than challenged it. As a result, in addition to being anti-war, the movement was anti-art. Above are two works of art that Dix completed during the Dada movement. Both portray wounded World War One veterans with various ailments and disfigurations. Dix wanted to shock the conscience of society by showing how the war had maimed and destroyed so many soldiers.
In fact, on the tenth anniversary of the war, Dix completed his most extensive graphic series on World War One. The series The War, consisted of 50 horrific battlefield scenes that were a product of Dix's own nightmares. Dix, unlike several other artists who received early discharges from the military for various physical and mental illnesses, served until the end of the war. It was not until well after the war ended that Dix experienced the physical and mental effects of the war. His nightmares were a sign of what we call today post-traumatic stress.
Below are selected images from The War series:
|
|
 |
Flare Lights up Monacu Farm, 1924
The flare illuminates the horror of a destroyed farm, the setting signified by a wooden plow. It is difficult to distinguish between farm wreckage, bodies sprawled on the ground and a blasted tree. (can be viewed at the Saint Louis Art Museum)
|
|
|
Skull, 1924
A severed skull lies on the earth. Grass has grown on its crown. More Grass resembles a
mustache under its nose. Out of the eyes, vegetation bursts, Worms crawl sickeningly out of a gaping mouth.
Dead Sentry in the Trenches, 1924
A German soldier sits in a trench, resting against its muddy wall. He is smiling, but the grin is empty
and hollow eyed- for his face is a bare skull. He has been dead awhile.
|
When the Nazis came to power in Germany, Dix, as well as many other artists, was persecuted. His work was labeled degenerate and two of his pieces were featured in the 1937 Degenerate Art Exhibit in Munich, Germany. He was fired from his position as an art teacher at the Dresden Academy and was forced to join the Nazi party. In 1939, Dix was falsely arrested for being involved in a plot against Hitler but was later released. In 1945, he was drafted and served in WWII. Dix was captured by the French at the end of the war and was released in 1946. He returned to his art after the war, painting mostly religious allegories and images of post-war suffering. Dix died in 1969.
 |
| Self-Portrait as a Prisoner of War, 1947 |
Sources:
Gutbrod, Phillip,
Otto Dix: The Art of Life, Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz, 2010. Print.
Jones, Jonathan.
The first world war in German art: Otto Dix's first-hand visions of horror, The Guardian. 13 May 2014. Web.
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/may/14/first-world-war-german-art-otto-dix
Saint Louis Art Museum Collections
.jpg)
