War stories
Perhaps
not all that surprisingly, the horrors of World War I served to
produce a significant amount of remarkable art. Our view in Australia
is largely seen through the prism of our involvement on the side
of the Allies, and indeed our participation as part of the British
Empire. It’s comparatively rare that we get the opportunity
to see the conflict from the other side. That however is exactly
what the National Gallery of Australia is providing with its new
travelling exhibition Art of War: The Prints of Otto Dix.
The centrepiece of the exhibition is Otto Dix’s
portfolio collection Der Krieg [War] completed in 1924.
Dix was, like many young German men of the time,
initially a supporter of the war; so much so that he volunteered
in 1915 at the age of 24. He was placed in an artillery regiment
based near his hometown of Dresden. The unit was sent to the Western
Front, where Dix fought in the Battle of the Somme in 1916. He
was wounded several times on the Western Front. In 1917, he was
transferred to the Eastern Front until the armistice with Russia
later that year. His unit then went back to the Western Front
and took part in the German spring offensive. Dix was decorated
for his service; but his experiences had affected him deeply.
Those experiences triggered recurring nightmares,
which in turn fed into the images he produced in War.
After the war, he flirted with both the German Expressionists
and Dadaists; although his desire to use a more realistic style
made him a poor fit for those groups. He became known not just
as a war artist, but also as a social commentator; pointing out
some of the less desirable aspects of life during the Weimar Republic
(1919 – 1933). These included paintings and drawings depicting
amputee veterans of the war begging on Berlin’s streets.
With the rise of Hitler, Dix was branded as a “degenerate”
artist; and some of his works were burned by the Nazis. In 1939,
he was arrested on the grounds of being involved in a plot against
Hitler. Although he was later released, most commentators concur
that Dix was not involved and that the arrest was a fit-up.
Perhaps
ironically, Dix was conscripted towards the end of World War II
into the Volkssturm (the German equivalent of the Home Guard),
was captured by French troops and spent time as a prisoner-of-war
before being released in February 1946. He continued to paint,
with his allegorical depictions of post-war suffering again prominent;
although he also turned to religious themes in his later years.
Dix died in the southern town of Singen (then in West Germany)
near the shores of Lake Constance in 1969.
War consists of 51 prints, etchings and
drawings. Many of them are images from the battlefront, depicted
in a largely realistic (though nonetheless nightmarish) style.
Perhaps one of the best-known of these images is 'Stormtroopers
Advancing Under Gas' (1924). Others however are more allegorical
than realistic, intended to invoke a feeling rather than accurately
depict a scene from life.
The cycle is deliberately patterned after Goya’s
Los Desastres de la Guerra [The disasters of war], which
depict the horrors of the Napoleon’s invasion of Spain and
the Spanish War of Independence from 1808 to 1814.
Art of War: The Prints of Otto Dix opens
at the Art Gallery of South Australia on 30 November 2007, before
travelling to Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane.
David Edwards
