Comparing Blood and Iron - Essay Example

College: Comparison between “The Old Motto of the ‘New’ Reich: Blood and Iron” (1934) and “The War Cripples” (1920) “The Old Motto of the ‘New’ Reich: Blood and Iron” (1934) by John Heartfield, and “The War Cripples” (1920) by Otto Dix were both works of German artists opposed against the brutality of fascism and Nazism, which had taken root in German society following the First World War. John Heartfield pioneered the use of art as a tool of achieving political ends. He was born in Berlin-Schmargendorf, Germany, on 19 June 1891 as Helmut Herzfeld. In 1899, his parents, Franz and Alice Herzfeld abandoned Helmut, his brother, Wieland, and their two sisters, Hertha and Lotte, and fled overseas to escape political persecution by the ruling regime. Franz Herzfeld’s critical writings of oppressive leadership under the Kaiser made him a target of the ruling elite, and he had to flee the country. Helmut and his siblings stayed with an uncle at Aigens for a while, and then different relatives adopted them. This incident played a vital role in influencing Helmuts, future political stand. In 1917, he launched the publishing house, Malik-Verlag, along with George Grosz and his brother Wieland Herzfelde, where he commenced illustrating books. They calculated their actions to portray rejection of German imperialism (German Expressionism, moma.org). The escalating militarism that initiated the collapse of the Second International in 1914 played a crucial role in shaping Heartfield’s artistic development; because it instigated the growth of social chauvinism. At the outbreak of World War I, majority of the social democratic parties in the Second International shifted their support to the war aims of the rulers of their own countries. Sozialdemokratische, the largest of these parties was the first one to make this betrayal. Heartfield joined the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) in 1918 after gaining inspiration from the October Revolution which occurred in Russia in 1917. In the same year, he Anglicized his name to John Heartfield in protest of the anti-British fervor engulfing Germany. During his tenure as a member of KPD, he made numerous “vote Communist” and “anti-imperialist” campaign posters ridiculing Nazism and its proprietors. Heartfield made his first photomontage in 1924 to coincide with the tenth anniversary of World War I’s beginning. It was known as “After Ten Years: Fathers and Sons”, and depicted skeletons parading behind a German imperial general. The photomontage technique became the most valuable part of Heartfield’s work, making it possible for him to address effectively various issues facing German society. Some of the photomontages he made were straightforward propaganda, whereas others combined political comment with his satirical vision. A good example is the photomontage he made in 1929, depicting himself cutting off Zorgiebel’s head, Berlin’s SPD police chief, and captioning “Use photography as a weapon”. The Workers Illustrated Paper, AIZ, frequently published his artwork. When Hitler rose to power in 1933, Heartfield fled to Britain where he worked as a freelance for papers such as Reynolds News, proliferating propaganda against Nazism. He moved back to Germany in 1950 and settled in East Berlin where he took up doing stage design, book jackets, and posters. He died on April 26 1968 in Berlin (Quinn, 124). Wilhelm Heinrich Otto Dix was a German printmaker and painter, distinguished for his harsh and ruthless artistic depictions of German Weimar society and the brutality of war. He was born on 2 December 1891 in Untermhaus, Germany. His cousin Fritz Amann, a painter, introduced him to art at an early age. He served an apprenticeship from 1906 to 1910 with a painter known as Carl Senff, during which he began to make his first landscape paintings. In 1910, he enrolled at the Academy of Applied Arts where he studied under distinguished art scholars such as Richard Guhr. He fought for Germany during World War I. He was involved in the Battle of the Somme and fought in Germany’s Spring Offensive. The sights of the war profoundly disturbed Dix, and he even had nightmares about them for several years after the war. In particular, he had a recurring nightmare in which he crawled while injured through destroyed houses. He depicted his traumatic war experiences in several of his subsequent works, including “Der Kreg”, a portfolio of fifty art pieces that was published in 1924. He was among the founders of the Dresden Secession in 1919, a time when his artistic work was going through an expressionist phase. He met George Grosz in 1920, who influenced him through Dada to incorporate elements of collage into his works. In the same year, he took part in the German Expressionism exhibition which took place in Darmstadt. Otto Dix joined the Berlin Secession in 1924, by which time he had developed a realistic style of painting that employed the use of thin glazes of oil paint on a tempera underpainting. His works were mostly critical depictions of contemporary German Weimar society. In the 1920s, he created several works that depicted crippled and disfigured war veterans, who were a common sight on Berlin streets. The most famous of these was “The War Cripples”. Otto Dix believed that German pro-war view could not change without the general public getting to view realistic horrifying battle scenes. As a result, he painted The Trench in 1923, a painting which depicted severely dismembered and decomposing bodies of German soldiers after a battle. It was exhibited at the Wallraf-Richardz Museum, and immediately caused a massive public outcry, making the museum cover the painting with a curtain. The incident culminated with the mayor of Cologne at the time, Konrad Adenauer, cancelling the purchase of the painting and forcing the museum’s director to resign. This made Dix realize that contemporary German society was highly intolerant to criticism, forcing him to change his techniques and resort to moderate ways of expressing his political views (Quinn, 189). Otto Dix’s “The War Cripples” served the role of attracting attention to the harsh realities of war and illustrating the forgotten status of German World War I veterans in German society. It depicts an image of four men marching along a street. Three of the men are crippled and are wearing army uniform. Two are walking with crutches, and the fourth man is pushing the third cripple on a wheelchair. John Heartfield’s “The Old Motto of the ‘New’ Reich: Blood and Iron” conveyed a stark warning of the brutality of fascism through a savage image of bloodied axes lashed together in the formation of a swastika. The physical qualities of Heartfield’s and Dix’s works differ significantly. “The Old Motto of the ‘New’ Reich: Blood and Iron” is a photomontage whereas “The War Cripples” is a drypoint painting. A photomontage is a composite photograph made by combining a number of portions from different photographs. Both artists employed their own unique artistic techniques in the creation of these works. Heartfield was the first artist to make photomontages which he used effectively to achieve his political agenda. On the other hand, Otto Dix painted “The War Cripples” using his own unique style of painting which he had developed. He used a realistic style of painting that employed the use of thin glazes of oil paint on a tempera underpainting. However, both works convey the same message. Both serve as a warning against the brutality of war. Dix created the “War Cripples” in 1920, almost two years after World War I ended. At that time, the sight of maimed and disfigured men was common in Germany after World War I. 80,000 amputees returned to Germany from the war front following the war. Dix himself had fought in the war and had gotten wounded in the neck. The traumatic nightmares involving the war which he experienced for several years after the war, also contributed to making him decide to create this painting which portrays war in a negative light. He experienced the horrors of the war himself and came to the conclusion that it is not worth the disruption, damage, and loss of life it caused (German Expressionism, moma.org). Just like Dix’s “The War Cripples”, Heartfield’s “The Old Motto of the ‘New’ Reich: Blood and Iron” conveyed a message of opposition against the waging of war to achieve national goals. Heartfield obtained the title of the work from the words of Otto Von Bismarck. Otto von Bismarck famously stated that Germany would achieve its nationalization goals, not through resolutions and speeches, but by blood and iron. The wars of 1866 and 1870 confirmed this resolution. The blood dripping off the swastika implies satirically that all Germany needed to solve its problems were rearmament and aggressive military expansion. The blood depicts the bloodshed and loss of life that would follow as a result of the wars that would be sparked by Nazi policy of aggressive military expansion (Bond, wsws.org) Heartfield’s opposition to Germany’s imperialism went hand in hand with Otto Dix’s opposition to German military aggression; both of them involved the use of force and brutality to conquer other countries. In the process, not only did the citizens of invaded countries suffer as the Germans plundered their land and took away their freedom, but also numerous German soldiers lost their lives or became permanently maimed in one way or another. In addition, both artists opposed the use of national resources to further pointless imperialistic goals at the expense of funding social and economic welfare programs for the numerous citizens who lived in social and economic hardships. Otto Dix’s “The War Cripples” was depicting that the ruling class had betrayed its patriotic veterans who made massive sacrifices for the country, but the government failed to take care of their needs after many of them became permanently incapacitated as a result of the war. Unlike Heartfield’s photomontage, Dix’s painting employed some humor. The crippled soldiers are marching past a shoemaker’s shop and yet they cannot wear shoes (Bond, wsws.org). Works Cited Bond, Paul. London’s Tate Modern Shows Photomontages f John Heartfield. World Socialist Web Site, 2012. Retrieved 14 Dec 2012, from http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/aug2012/hear-a07.shtml German Expressionism. Otto Dix (German, 1891 – 1969). 2010. Retrieved 14 Dec 2012, from http://p4test.moma.org/collection_ge/browse_results.php?criteria=O:AD:E:1559|A:TTE:I:2&page_number=1&template_id=1&sort_order=1&view_all=1 Quinn, Malcolm. The Swastika: Constructing the Symbol. London: Routledge, 1994. Read More