Otto Dix

Otto Dix was born in Germany in 1891. On the outbreak of WWI, Dix volunteered for the German army and by the end of the war, Dix had won the Iron Cross and reached the rank of vice-sergeant-major.

After the war, Dix developed left-wing views and his paintings and drawings became increasingly political.  In 1924, Dix produced a book of etchings called “The War” that was later described by one critic as "perhaps the most powerful as well as the most anti-war statements in modern art".

“The war” shows explicit, unrelenting images focusing on the aftermath of the war: dying soldiers, dead bodies and ruined landscapes, from the perspective of a soldier who witnessed these things firsthand. The titles of the individual etchings, describing the location of each scene, make them become a diary rather than a collection of imagined images, while monotone palette provides a solemn atmosphere.

Skull

This decaying skull symbolizes the horror of WWI. For Dix and other WWI artists, skulls were used to demonstrate the dark reality of death that war inevitably brings.

Wounded Man (Autumn 1916, Bapaume)

The disfigured soldier haunts the viewer, demonstrating both the physical and psychological damages of war. In this print, the white patches Dix has left in part of the man’s face draw links to skulls and inescapable death.

Dying Soldier

Here, Dix uses aquatint, in contrast with the tonal marks dependant on the distance between etched lines, to give an effect of decaying flesh.