Big City (Otto Dix)
| Big city |
|---|
| Otto Dix , 1927/28 |
| Mixed media on wood |
| 181 × 402 cm |
| Stuttgart Art Museum
Link to the picture |
Großstadt is a triptych by Otto Dix painted in Dresden in 1927/28 . It was painted on wood using the glaze technique of the old masters . The painting is initially on loan at the Art Museum in Stuttgart . In 1972 it was bought from the artist's estate for € 500,000.
Image description
The main theme is the nightlife in a big city in the Roaring Twenties . The interior of a dance bar is shown on the central panel. A jazz band dominated by brass plays on the left . On the right side sit and stand the rich and beautiful . The women wear dresses whose fabrics and patterns could also be found on medieval paintings. The two groups are connected by a couple dancing shimmy . Their bodies are reflected in the polished parquet. The background of the room is dark red. On the left wing you can see several women standing in front of the red-lit entrance of the bar and looking contemptuously over two men, one lying on the floor, the other a war cripple. The men are barked at wildly by a dog. On the very outside you can see an almost hidden woman looking out of a gate entrance. The right wing is dominated by a group of women who seem to strive towards the viewer in a row from above and pass by another war cripple. The fur collar and red dress of the foremost woman resemble a vulva. The grand piano finds its conclusion in a wild architecture that does not seem to satisfy any correct perspective.
Otto Dix used several medieval images as inspiration for the big city . The architecture is inspired by the Herrenberger Altar by Jörg Ratgeb . Otto Dix also used pictures by Hans von Köln and Hans Pleydenwurff in his painting.
Depicted people
Otto Dix exhibited the picture for the first time at one of three exhibitions to mark the 100th anniversary of the Saxon Art Association . On the central panel he also portrayed various sizes of the Saxon art industry at the time. The man with the monocle on the right is the architect Wilhelm Kreis . The head of the Saxon State Chancellery, Alfred Schulze, is depicted in the saxophone player . The prominent position of the saxophone can also be explained by the phonetic similarity between the state of Saxony and the saxophone . The dancer in the middle is commonly identified with Martha Dix . Whether the dancer is a strongly idealized portrait of Otto Dix himself cannot be answered clearly.
literature
- Dix: Otto Dix on his 100th birthday 1891–1991, Stuttgart, Hatje, ISBN 3-7757-0335-7 .
- Otto Dix Großstadt, Birgit Schwarz: An art monograph, Insel Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1993, ISBN 3458331867 .