© 2013 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn
On view
William R. Elfers Gallery
Die Schlafenden von Fort Vaux (Gas-Tote) (The Sleepers of Fort Vaux (Gas Victims)),
1923–24, published 1924
Published by Karl Nierendorf, 1889–1947; born Düsseldorf, Germany; died New York, NY
Dix was a machine gunner during World War I, and nearly a decade later he drew on his wartime experiences for his haunting series of fifty prints, Der Krieg (The War). Like much of the series, The Sleepers of Fort Vaux does not show active combat but rather, in the artist’s words, the “conditions that war called forth”—including the excruciating death by asphyxiation caused by the use of poison gas. Dix exploited the caustic effects of etching and aquatint—techniques in which a metal printing plate is corroded by acid—to create a morbid scene in which the mass of “sleeping” soldiers’ bodies becomes the landscape of Fort Vaux itself, surrendered to the Germans during the Battle of Verdun in June 1916. As Dix did not witness this event, he supplemented his wartime memories by studying photographs of the deadly aftermath.
More Context
Didactics
Amid the social decadence of 1920s Berlin, Dix produced an astonishing series of fifty etchings that recall the horrors he had experienced ten years before, as a machine-gunner on the Western Front during World War I. Taking inspiration from Spanish artist Francisco Goya's print series <em>The Disasters of War</em>, Dix exposed the harsh reality and hallucinatory quality of modern trench warfare. He experimented with a variety of etching and aquatint techniques, dipping the plate into an acid bath to expose the areas he wished to show as lines or areas of shadow. The "sleepers"— victims of a gas attack during the Battle at Verdun—become a muddy, indeterminate mass as one progresses into the background,as if the entire scene is being eaten away by acid.
More About This Object
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1923–24, published 1924
Europe, Germany, Berlin
