Three artists of the Weimar Republic—Otto
Dix, Kathe Kollwitz, and George Grosz—cannot be easily classified
in one of the artistic movements. As Sarah Miller of the Busch-Reisinger
Museum suggests in a recent guide on Weimar art, these three are best
classified as artists of social criticism. They witnessed the horrors
of World War I and the chaos that prevailed in Germany in the aftermath
of war. Their art responded to the conditions of the period, strongly
criticizing the militarism of German society, the harsh suppression of
German Communists, and the bourgeois values that they observed in the
new Republic. In a more pronounced fashion than the Expressionists, these
three used the human body as a means of representing qualities of the
body politic. They did not hesitate to criticize the existing government
and society. They intended to reach large audiences so most of their
works were prints that were inexpensive to produce and distribute.
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Print: Machine Gunners
Advancing, Otto Dix, 1924.
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Print:"The Survivors, War
Against the War",
("DIE UEBERLEBENDEN, KRIEG DEM
KRIEG"),
Kathe Kollwitz, 1923. Published by the International Federation
of Trade Union Amsterdam. |
Lithograph: The
Hero, George
Grosz, 1936. 16" x 11 ½". Gift of Mr. and
Mrs. Robert Roth to Herberger College of Fine Arts, Arizona State
University Art Museum.
|
Otto
Dix came out of a working class background. In his early twenties
he volunteered for a machine gun unit in World War I. His prints reveal
the negative ugly side of war: he saw no glory in war and its “heroes.”
Kathe
Kollwitz was in her early fifties when World War I ended. She
lost her son Peter at the beginning of World War I. Having lost faith
in Germany, she briefly was attracted to the Communist Revolution. She
soon became disillusioned with Communism and devoted her work to promoting
the ideas of pacifism.
George
Grosz (1893-1959 was best known in the Weimar Era for his biting
satiric prints depicting the ugliness of Berlin society and culture.
On several occasions he was fined for his criticisms of society, the
military and Christian values and the bourgeoisie in particular. For
about a year he was a member of the Communist Party, but even after he
left the party in 19923 he continued to consider himself a propagandist
of the social revolution. Among the most well-known of his works were:
The Face of the Ruling Class (1919), Ecce Homo (1922), Mirror
of the Bourgeoisie (1924) and Love above All (1931). Otto Friedrich recalls
the essence of Grosz’s works that so offended the ruling elites:
Painting: George Grosz. Self-Portrait, Warning. 1927. Oil on canvas.
98 x 79 cm. Galerie Nierendorf, Berlin, Germany. |
He [Grosz]
was enormously productive, creating hundreds of vivid portraits
of Berlin and
its citizens—all without exception, portraits of decay, corruption,
lewdness, death. They do not, of course, give a really comprehensive
picture of the city. There seem to be no workmen in Grosz’s
Berlin, no schoolchildren, no parks or trees. There are no pretty
girls, just apathetic whores, or matrons with sagging breasts,
who stand and wait for paunchy husbands in suspenders and underwear
to finish brushing their teeth. There is nobody, as a matter of
fact, who looks as young and eager and cleancut as Grosz himself,
only middle-aged businessmen with bristling mustaches and bald
heads and thick cigars; and officers with monocles and ruthless
jaws, and, often no trousers; and, over and over again, sex murderers,
real or potential, brandishing knives and hatchets. Even the buildings
of Berlin become sinister in Grosz’s drawings, hard towers
of stone, usually tilted at threatening angles. And there is rarely
any sunshine, just the pale light of a crescent moon glowing thinly
outside the apartment house where some horror is occurring. And
yet, despite their savagery, despite their obsessive repetition
of the themes of lust and corruption, Grosz’s paintings are
fearfully accurate. They may not represent all Berliners, but those
figures of hatred did walk up and down the streets of Berlin in
the 1920’s, and in the days of Hitler. One can tell because
one can see them on the streets of Berlin today. |
Grosz immigrated to the United States shortly before the Nazis came
to power. He remained in New York until 1958 when he returned to Berlin.
He died in an accident just six weeks after his return. |
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