Stormtroopers Advancing Under Gas When World War I broke out, German artist Otto Dix volunteered for the army. He spent three years on the front lines, amidst some of the most horrifying violence imaginable, before being discharged a few weeks after the war’s end. He returned home with a nasty case of PTSD and a new artistic motivation, helping to form the progressive, pacifist artists’ collective, the Dresden Secession. In 1923, he debuted The Trench, an anti-war painting so disturbing the museum hid it behind a curtain. The Mayor of Cologne not only backed out of purchasing The Trench, he got the museum director fired for even displaying it. A year later, he published Der Krieg, a collection of 50 etchings inspired by the war, a sampling of which you see here. The harsh lines and brutal textures exude a violent intensity—it all seems to accost the viewer. (If you recognize a bit of “gonzo” in the illustrations, you’re picking up on one of Ralph Steadman’s major influences.) Dix was quickly labeled a degenerate artist when the Nazis took power, and over 260 of his paintings were seized—many of them burned. For a long time The Trench...
