Research Essay

Trench by Otto Dix

Student Name: Maharani Anindita Wijaya

Student ID

: 43654811

Course: ARTT1105 Art in the Modern World

Tutors Name : Dr Paolo Magagnoli

October 12, 2015

A glance of Otto Dix

The expression of a painter in their artworks sometimes produce a controversy. One of
German painter, Otto Dix, was considered as a controversial artist in his era. Most of his works
caused massive public attention since it clashed with the ideologies. He was a German soldier in
World War I. He known as an Expressionist, Dadaist, and New Objectivist. In 1919, he founded
Dresden Secession, a radical group that contrast to the early Expressionist which presented broad
variety of styles and political stances (Gutbrod and Dix 2010). He took part in Berlin Dadaists where
one of his controversial painting The War Cripple (fig.2) was exhibited.
Otto Dix has almost anarchist outlook of life since he viewed political ideologies as a
barriers to find the truth. His military services was not because of his nationalism, but because he
want to test his personal limits and tried an extreme adventure (Gutbrod and Dix 2010). During
the WWI, he got a traumatic scenes since a lot of death surrounded him. This was a productive
moments for Dix where he produced many works that portrayed the tragedy during those days.
Dix inspired by the formal aspects of Futurism and often presented his works in a very expressive
manner. In his notebook from 1915, he said Even war must be seen as a natural phenomenon
(Gutbrod and Dix 2010). Thus, he portrayed reality as powerful as possible to the public to seek
the undesirable facts. Since his artworks usually brought many controversies, it was not easy to
find an art dealer that has courage to display and sell his works.

Trench
One of Dixs controversial work which going to be analysed in this essay is Trench (fig.1).
The medium was oil on canvas, with unknown location, since the works was seized during Nazi
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regime. This painting made from 1920 in Dresden and finished in 1923 where has moved to
Dusseldorf, during the Weimar Republic. Trench portrayed war that he experienced. The annual
exhibition of this work was in Wallraf-Richartz Museum in Cologne in December 1923. At that time,
there were no visual arts that portrayed the war in this kind of disturbing and shocking manner.
Alfred H. Barr said that this painting might be the most famous picture in post-war Europe (Otto
Dix 2015) which also made him famous. The initial function of this work was intended as a
monument to barbarism of the trench experience (Crockett 1992). The only records of this work
was found in black&white photograph. This works is under the New Objectivity movement, on the
other hand this works also considered as part of Expressionism. He portrayed his memento mori
in detailed that shown the main idea of war was a disgusting thing. The painting was full of death
and shown a scene of devastation (Gutbrod and Dix 2010). It was shown from a lot of mutilated
bodies and skulls all over the painting. Wires and branches supports the scene to be more tense
and giving the sense of cruelty. The center attraction of this painting is a dead soldier body on the
upper left that has been stabbed on a freestanding iron reinforcement. He illustrated the war in
this work different from his previous work, where he visualize of his experiences during the war.
While Trench, portrayed the horror of the dead and wounded in WWI, rather than illustrating the
fights.
During the time Trench exhibited for public, it was not be possible for artists to have a
freedom of expression through their works about social and political issues such as war, since it
was the period of Weimar Republic in Germany. Weimar Republic begun in 1913 until 1933 where
it was the time Dix produces this works. While in Cologne, where the works displayed, it was under
the civil occupation of the British. In the middle of political chaos, revolutionary painting such this
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work had a massive impact towards the public. Although the public has used to seen a lot of
black&white photograph of war, but the public did not ready to see the portrayal of war in colors
with a 4 square meter painting (Gutbrod and Dix 2010).
To Meier-Graefe this work was much more than a bad painting that leads to national
embarrassment and potentially subversive, especially the works was displayed outside Germany
(Crockett 1992). For the nationalist and the conservative group, it ruined the public perception
towards German soldier and their sacrifices during the war, whereas it was the time that they tried
to perpetuate and eternalize the situations in order to rescue the honor of Soldier. The
complicated political situations at the time made Dix got a lot of critics and enemy from the public
which lead to controversies.

Controversies
This artworks created a lot of controversies not only among the politicians and arts
critiques, but also among the public both in Germany and international. As Dixs magnum opus,
Trench, it caused more political controversy and more hostility that no other artist was received
at that time. The controversies began since the works was displayed in the Wallraf-Richartz
Museum in Cologne. The painting was purchased by the new director Hans F. Secker, through
Nierendorf, Dixs art dealer. Secker said Your painting will most likely be the greatest
sensationThe city of Cologne and its director will be both attacked and praised for this
acquisition (Crockett 1992). Therefore, it was displayed behind a gray curtain where the visitors
has to go behind it to see the painting.

Trench was considered caused bad reputation for the Weimar Republic because of its
gruesomeness and offensiveness. Another aspects that made this works controversial is because
the painting lacked any heroic elements and seems disrespectful towards the militarys reputation
(Gutbrod and Dix 2010). Kolnische Volkszeitung predicted that this works will always find many
enemies since it represented the most gruesome picture ever painted (Crockett 1992). A lot of
media criticized this works because they thought that it did not belong for public collection. In
Rhinelands most popular daily paper, Walter Schmits in his column of drastic antiwar propaganda
argued Trench depicted the worst representation of war. While the political discourse of Rhineland
Palatinate at that time was under the rigid occupation of the French, who supported an
independent Rhineland nation. He regret the purchase of this painting seeing that Dixs
propaganda were false and misleading since it shown war as a mass murderEveryone knows
that hundreds of thousands lost their liveswar is a terrible thinghowever, war, especially now,
seems inevitable (Crockett 1992).
Schmits critiqued that museum is for art, not for propaganda. Although there were a lot of
who against this works, there were also some influential artist that supported Trench in positive
manner such as Lovis Corinth. Besides that, Mac Liebermann also gave a positive response towards
the works by wrote an open letter asking Trench to be displayed in the exhibition in Prussian
Academy of Arts in 1924, Berlin (Gutbrod and Dix 2010). This work succeed to be exhibited in
Berlin and went well for a period of time until Julius Meier-Graefe, one of the first important
supporters of modern art in Germany, publish a critics towards Dixs work. He published a critics
that the display of The Trench was a public nuisance and asked to be removed it through
personal letter. As it is owned not by German country and was displayed for public, this painting
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has becomes a German cultural documents. Through this barbaric manner portrayal of war, it
damaged the image of German. Thus, the works supposed to be not displayed by public, moreover,
not owned by German museum.
On the other hand, protest and campaign aroused against this work. Graefe was one of the
group who led the campaign in order to ask the painting to be removed (Crockett 1992). The
protest became more intense because of the activities of military officer associations, where at
that time tried to save the honor of German soldiers (Gutbrod and Dix 2010). It was questionable
and discomfort about the doubts of his view on WWI and political situation that is still unclear,
since he was a soldier in WWI, while his works seems to ridiculed the military.
In early 1925, the painting was asked to be returned to Nierendorf. It assumed that was
the Colognes mayor which longtime was member of the Catholic Center Party due to political
and aesthetic reason (Gutbrod and Dix 2010). After the painting returned due to the shock and
disturbing nature of his art, Dix did not stopped there. His acrimony and aggressiveness
characteristics from Nietzches challenging language from the Futurist group combined with his
Dadaist sarcasm, encouraged him to publish the anti-war publication Nie wieder Krieg (Never again
war) that aimed to raise public awareness about the realities of war. In July 1925, Trench back to
be exhibited in the International Art Exhibition in Zurich. The work was bought again in 1928 by
Hans Posse for the Dresdner Gemaldegalerie, the museum of his hometown. In 1933, the Nazi
regime started to take control. Dix was fired from his job as a professor at the Academy of Fine
Arts, Dresden. Trench was seized and bought by Nazi for two hundred dollars on behalf of the
regime. After that, no one knows the status of that works, and it assumed that Nazi has destroyed
it. He also got a law enforcement officers since they believed that he will stand behind the
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national state. They were insecure that he will the reproduce another works that offended the
moral sentiment, endangered the ethical development and impaired the German peoples
willingness to fight (Gutbrod and Dix 2010). Furthermore, his work Trench (1923) & The War
Cripple was published in a brochure with title Painted Military Sabotage by the Painter Otto Dix
for Great German Art Exhibition. Although Trench seized by Nazi, he had reproduce it in The War
(1929-1933) (fig.3) with a different settings that combined a caricatured objects of war.

Dix in Modern world

Dix contributions for arts in modern world drew from his objective which played a big role
throughout his career as an artist. Trench not only created a great controversy for the political and
social life, but also provided a big deal for art in that era. The works is categorized as part of New
Objectivity movement which began in 1920s and ended in 1933. Dix stated candidly that he
invented the movement since he had been painting objectively before WWI such as in his work
Self-Portarit with Carnation -1912 (Gutbrod and Dix 2010). New Objectivity glorified functionality,
rationality and objectivity. As Helmut Lethen described is the emotional & intellectual tendency
to act, not for personal gain, but in the service of a higher cause (Karcher, Dix and Walther 1988).
In Trench, Dix applied the principle of this movement where to contribute the invariably subjective
experience of reality and objective quality in order to regain stability and find an enduring social
identity after WWI. Besides that, Dixs style also illustrated as from impressionistic to
expressionistic painting, from futuristic alla prima to the glaze of the Old Masters in JB Neumann
gallery. His styles and techniques contributed a big part in New Objectivity as well as the art of
modern world.
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Appendices
Figure 1 - Trench, Oil on canvas, 98 5/8 x 89 3/8 inches

Figure 2. The War Cripples (1920)

Figure 3. The War (1929-1933)

Bibliography
Crockett, Dennis. 1992. 'The Most Famous Painting Of The "Golden Twenties"? Otto Dix And The
Trench Affair'. Art Journal 51 (1): 72. doi:10.2307/777257.
Karcher, Ev,a, Otto Dix, and Ingo F Walther. 1988. Otto Dix, 1891-1969. Koln: Benedikt Taschen.
Gutbrod, Philipp, and Otto Dix. 2010. Otto Dix. Ostfildern, Germany: Hatje Cantz.
Otto Dix,. 2015. 'Catalog Paintings - Otto Dix'. http://www.ottodix.org/catalog-paintings/page/3/
The Art Story,. 2015. 'Otto Dix Biography, Art, And Analysis Of Works'. Accessed October 11.
http://www.theartstory.org/artist-dix-otto-artworks.htm
van Dyke, J. 2009. 'Otto Dix's Streetbattle And The Limits Of Satire In Dusseldorf, 1928'. Oxford Art
Journal 32 (1): 37-65. doi:10.1093/oxartj/kcp005.
Arthistoryarchive.com,. 2015. 'Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity) - The Art History Archive'.
Accessed
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http://www.arthistoryarchive.com/arthistory/neuesachlichkeit/arthistory_neuesachlichkeit.html.

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