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ROUGE CABARET
The
Terrifying and Beautiful World of Otto Dix
The other day we had a discussion with friends about Otto Dix
exhibition we had seen at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts during our holidays. I was describing our visit and asking why someone would
want to buy such distressing artworks, hideous by their content.
The first gallery presented the etchings of the German painter born
in 1891. Those had been executed after drawings Dix had carried out
throughout the First World War while he was in the trenches. Pierre
had designated this gallery, the funeral home because the atmosphere
was so morbid there.
Dix made ugly the horror of the war depicting soldiers laying in
horrible poses. His son said in a video that it was an outlet for
the atrocity soldiers were confronted to. Personally I couldn’t find
anything beautiful, neither the subject nor the technique.
The second gallery was devoted to the after war: brothels,
prostitution, survival. There again, Dix was showing the human
torment in all its ugliness. One would like to see caricature there;
but no, it‘s worst: distorded bodies, amplified ugliness. Dix
depicted the brutal reality, amplifying it.
The question came with the visit of these two galleries: Why would
someone want to buy that type of artwork? The answer that was given
to me: Because it's the start of a new era, it indicates a major change in
the style, it’s against the trend. So much for the explanation... Pierre and I would never be able to live with that kind of art.
The third gallery was devoted to portraits. It reconciled me
with the artist. This has been my favourite gallery: portraits of a
writer, lawyers, a poet, an actor. Strong people. We don’t feel they
are posing for the artist; it’s different, the lawyer is seated,
somehow shrunk on the chair, the wall behind him is smashed and
opened on the city. The poet is painted full-length with his coat
dropped on the chair, not nicely set. And of course the Portrait of
the Lawyer Hugo Simons already in the Museum’s collection that was
acquired after a notable fight that made the headlines in all the
papers of the time. With the portraits of the actor and the other
lawyer it was my favourite work. Still with dark colours. With a
composition more in conformity with what we are used to see, with
perspectives not has disturbing for the eyes. Dix was then working a
lot on commission. It was also the time when he was rejected,
banished, persecuted; several of his war works were destroyed.
The last gallery presented the landscapes he painted during the last part of his life
when he was forced to leave the city to live in the country; a new
environment for his art that was still as dense, with a surcharge of
elements, little space to breath, but with more quietude despite
everything... the country will have pacified him.
This is food for thoughts. When I am asked why we visit exhibits that
do not attract us in the first place, I answer... to discover, to
know, to understand.
January 15, 2011
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