8: Short Essay about Otto Dix

Here is a small essay about Otto Dix written by me: 

All the bad things - Otto Dix

Dix (1891-1969) is a giant of an artist whose work progressed through different genres during his life - dadism, realism, new objectivity (also Grosz) and German Expressionism (see here). Much of the power of his work stemmed from his dramatic portrayal of his experience in the Great War - Dix had been a machine gunner, and thus learned his anatomy in a direct and gruesome way. You can see this in his drawing, which is often twisted and torn. There is a good, short history of this violent period in Dix's art in a post by Elliot David in the Paris Review here.

There is scant sympathy in this vision of marauding German troopers: 

Some of Dix's later work took Weimar society as it's theme and was unflinchingly, often controversially, critical. He depicted sexual violence and prostitution, poverty and corruption; here we look down upon the beggar, presumably a war victim, in the street as would a shopper passing by. Like the shopper, the gallery visitor also inevitably walks past, ignoring the beggar for the next picture:

Compare Dix's card players, for example, to Cezanne:

 

Corruption of the mind and body; greed and evil intent - this is a jaded, jaundiced vision. 

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I enjoyed writing that essay. 

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One of the uncomfortable things this experiment has thrown up I think concerns the very concept of the artist as observer and commenter, and the conflict this entails with living life. How do you comment on a society that you must live in and to a great extent participate in? Was Otto Dix supremely miserable and horrible all the time, or did his work allow him to exorcise his demons, as it were? Many of the other artists I intend to consider during this project make similarly direct - often uncompromising and extreme - comments about society in their work. While I like this sort of thing, I also feel there is room for some ambiguity - in reality, though we complain about consumer capitalism, we mostly participate in it. Is there a more ambivalent reaction to it which one could express in illustration in some way? 

7: Experiment #4 - Shopping Collages

I had acquired a load of clothing and perfume catalogues in House of Fraser with an eye to using them as reference or collaging them into some drawings. 

The J'adore Dior drawing came about through a brochure of Dior make-up which I cut up a bit and some patterns found in the print room. This is the frenzy of shopping for the 'perfect' luxury item. There's a hint of a bestial face from behind the woman's outstretched arm. There's even a 'J'adore Dior' which is the brand's official moniker. This was certainly another Steadman-influenced scene and the sort of thing he might focus on - mad shameless greed. 

Below: The Gleam of Diamonds in her eyes: 

This drawing was an attempt to recreate an actual scene I had seen in the store; an older lady wearing shapeless clothes looking with what I took to be wonder at a red dress hanging on the slim frame of a shop mannequin. I collaged in a photo from a catalogue, and was thinking roughly Steinberg-y about this with the off-white background. I put the 40% off sign in there (which was hanging everywhere in the store - sometimes it was 20%). Maybe she's thinking 'well if it's 40% off, I can squeeze into it."The joke is the contrast between dream and reality and how this is pushed in our faces in such places in order to sell us junk. I had looked a little at Steinberg, his use of collage with line drawing:

I also liked the way he drew these women's coats with patterned mark making: 

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Overall, in this experiment I think I was trying to do a few things. 

1: The use of collage makes a direct link with the actual products and store, hopefully circumventing my hole-ey drawing of clothes and bags and whatnot. 

2: The use of colour in the drawing can hope to play off the collaged elements - either the old lady with her shabby clothes or the use of the gold colour - the colour of money - in the Dior drawing. 

3: There is a poke at the shoppers themselves in the caricature of the features - this comes across perhaps more sneery than I intended. The joke ought to be perhaps on the place - although perhaps the joke is ultimately really on all of us. 

...

One might frame the drawings as comment on the awful way in which ordinary people behave when confronted with the frenzying effects of consumerism. I'd been reading a book called Consumed! about the deleterious, infantilising effects of consumer culture on children and adults. Which was a cheery read and might have planted seeds in my febrile brain. 

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Here is a small essay about Otto Dix written by me: 

All the bad things - Otto Dix

Dix (1891-1969) is a giant of an artist whose work progressed through different genres during his life - dadism, realism, new objectivity (also Grosz) and German Expressionism (see here). Much of the power of his work stemmed from his dramatic portrayal of his experience in the Great War - Dix had been a machine gunner, and thus learned his anatomy in a direct and gruesome way. You can see this in his drawing, which is often twisted and torn. There is a good, short history of this violent period in Dix's art in a post by Elliot David in the Paris Review here.

There is scant sympathy in this vision of marauding German troopers: 

Some of Dix's later work took Weimar society as it's theme and was unflinchingly, often controversially, critical. He depicted sexual violence and prostitution, poverty and corruption; here we look down upon the beggar, presumably a war victim, in the street as would a shopper passing by. Like the shopper, the gallery visitor also inevitably walks past, ignoring the beggar for the next picture:

Compare Dix's card players, for example, to Cezanne:

 

Corruption of the mind and body; greed and evil intent - this is a jaded, jaundiced vision. 

-------------------

I enjoyed writing that essay. 

-------------------

One of the uncomfortable things this experiment has thrown up is I think the concept of the artist as observer and reporter, and the conflict this entails with living life. Was Otto Dix supremely miserable and horrible all the time, or did his work allow him to exorcise his demons, as it were? Perhaps there is in actuality a more ambivalent reaction to consumer capitalism which we all demonstrate - the fact that we all essentially co-operate with it - which one could express in some way perhaps. 

I imagine I was drawn to these artists in particular because their work carries a fairly direct comment on society. Also that much of their work tends to be quite dense - both in the subject matter, the viewpoint, the medium and graphic approach. It tends towards heaviness (less so Steinberg) and can be gruesomely captivating if sometimes claustrophobic. 

The sense of scale and place is hard to capture in a piece if there are holes in the artistic memory or toolkit, and if there is an unfamiliarity with tackling drawings from different viewpoints or subverting perspective entirely. This is something I shall attempt to tackle in my next experiment. 

6: Wednesday Workshop #2 - Collages - word and image

These are some collages done with Fumio on Wednesday. I think I liked these three because they are vaguely humorous, although the last one is a bit sinister. It is easier to combine words and images in collage because one is working with found materials - there is none of the potential contrast between drawing and text. This will be something to consider in future experiments.

5: Experiment #3 - Shopping expanded

I tried to take the drawings I'd done in House of Fraser in Cheltenham onto another level with this experiment. I tried to mock-up some of the ideas I'd had about the experience in a few different ways.

1: Distorted/ surreal sense of space

I tried to circumvent conventional layout with these images - introducing a slightly German expressionist/Dada sense of objects in space almost collaged on top of each other, and playing around with scale - perhaps George Grosz/ Max Beckmann/ Kurt Schwitters ?

 

This was to try and portray the shopping experience as disorientating and bewildering. The off-white paper and charcoal also - unintentionally - channels the 1920s.

2: Human comedy - vanity/hideousness

This drawing was more about caricature of shoppers - both the women and the clothes look haggard and awful. The man in the background is sizing up the shop mannequin. With the wash this looks more like something by Ronald Searle or even Roland Bachelor - 'the human comedy':

3: Age and lust, real and imagined bodies

The final drawing is more blackly comic still. I wanted to say something about how the store relies - and preys - on female shoppers using an idealised vision of the female form. There is a lustful 'sugar daddy' buying clothes with his wife/mistress, and a mother/daughter pair gazing adoringly - and enviously - at the shop mannequin. Only a teenaged girl can generally aspire to that sort of figure, and presumably the dress it's wearing.

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I bodged the clothes and store items a bit in these drawings - my visual memory of these things is not great. Perhaps with more visual reference - maybe photo reference or actually using collaged elements in the drawings, the 'props' might be a bit more convincing. Colour would help to this end. The faces generally do the job I think. There is certainly scope for more experimentation with distorting visual space and scale with the department store interiors concept.

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I had some other, more conventional narrative ideas about ways to depict the mad, manic, shopping experience which I experimented with in thumbnail:

A view from inside the store - the rabid crowds are outside and the security are straining trying to keep the doors shut. In the next frame (undrawn) the rabble bursts into the store sending goods and security everywhere in the manic rush for goods!

Below: A sketch for a cartoon about shopping and mental disintegration.

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4: Experiment #2 - Sketching Shoppers in Cheltenham

I set out with the aim of capturing the shopping atmosphere in Cheltenham in the build-up to Christmas. I wanted to visualise the manic consumption most seem to participate in during the annual spending splurge.

I started by heading into the streets with my sketchbook. I sat in the promenade and drew shoppers as they walked towards/away from me, looking particularly for people with lots of shopping bags. I drew some shop facades as well:

Above: An incredibly small dog that everyone was making a fuss of, dwarfed by its enormous owners.

 Above: I like the legs in this drawing.

 Above: Lampposts and street furniture on the Promenade. Also children.

A lot of these drawings could be nothing but quick studies of movement - which was not really what I was after ultimately, but all that could be done drawing on the spot.

Above: The parents of these children were trying unsuccessfully to control them. Children aren't really designed for shopping centres, but lots of shops in Cheltenham are designed to help mummies and daddies to buy children's clothes. It weren't like that when I were a lad.

Cavendish House, the most horrible place in Cheltenham, and my next destination:

Above: Reluctant male shoppers of a certain age.

This was during the pre-Christmas sale weekend.

Above: Reality stares you back in the mirror.

Above: Male shop staff commenting on a passing lady shopper.

Above: 'You get shower gel in that one.'

...was playing in the store.

Above: The female mannequins probably don't even measure size zero

I didn't really enjoy drawing in the store and felt out of place - although few people paid me much attention. I overheard people's conversations and noted the number of times the word 'need' cropped up. Everyone seemed to be pretty focused on the task at hand - 20% 2 day discount.

Looked at without the objective to buy anything, the generic department store layout is an extremely strange, even disorienting environment, where an open-plan structure is sub-divided and layered according to product type, brand etc. There is very little furniture other than the shelves and stands needed to display goods on. The overall effect - colour included - is like that of a sweet-shop, where one is constantly drawn from one bright thing to another - more sweets in the bag.

I left considering how I might illustrate these ideas... though concerned for my sanity in trying to do so.