Video No. 6009. English Language Pal VHS.
An Exploration of Art on Film.
'The Painter Is The Eyes Of The World'.
Directed by Reiner E Moritz.
The searing psychological realism of the German painter Otto Dix (1891-1969) embodies the experience of Germany between the wars - its traumatised despair and violent decadence.
While Dix is best known for his paintings and etchings from this period, which focus unflinchingly on the reality of war and its effects (Germany had some 1.5 million war disabled, and the grotesque disfigurement caused by war wounds is a frequent theme) and on the world of prostitutes and their clients, this film looks at his career as a whole, tracing his development from early Impressionist-influenced landscapes to his later phase of religiously inspired works. It explores Dix's debt to the masters of the German Renaissance and his strengths as a draughtsman and printmaker, notably in the great series of etchings 'The War' (1924) in which Dix returned to his experiences as a machine gunner serving on the Western Front and in Russia.
As well as being one of the greatest war artists of any age, Dix produced many portraits - including some 160 self-portraits - which also exemplify the striking directness of his vision. Dix's work aroused strong reactions - his pictures were reviled, even spat at - and he was included in the Nazis' notorious exhibition of "Degenerate Art". As this film shows, Dix's visionary creation of art from ugliness retains both its relevance and its power to shock.
