Article
Collection Publications: Klinger to Kollwitz Labels3
Otto Dix's first-hand experiences of the horrors of trench warfare as a machine-gunner on the western front, and the hundreds of sketches he made during this time formed the basis for his searing graphic anti war masterpiece Der Krieg. This series consisted of fifty images assembled in five consecutive portfolios of ten plates each. Although only one complete portfolio sold, the publisher subsequently produced an inexpensive offset lithographic book edition, which became an immediate success. By 1930 the National Socialists found Dix's war depictions politically subversive, and Der Krieg was included in the infamous "Degenerate Art" exhibition that opened in Munich in 1937.
Like most of the images in the series, this work does not show active combat, but rather, in Dix's words, the "conditions that war called forth"-- one of these the excruciating death by asphyxiation caused by chlorine gas. Dix deliberately exploits the corrosive elements of the etching and aquatint techniques to create a morbid landscape in which the "sleeping" soldiers merge with the inert stones.
Like most of the images in the series, this work does not show active combat, but rather, in Dix's words, the "conditions that war called forth"-- one of these the excruciating death by asphyxiation caused by chlorine gas. Dix deliberately exploits the corrosive elements of the etching and aquatint techniques to create a morbid landscape in which the "sleeping" soldiers merge with the inert stones.
