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Otto Dix, Selbstporträt
(1914)
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While the majority of the European intellectuals, in particular the Futurists, were still celebrating the War as an overdue means of purification - the "hygiene of the world" (Marinetti) - Dix' self-portrait must be considered an early disillusioned and radically pessimistic insight into the psychic metamorphosis of man as a soldier. As if emerging from a stream of blood, Dix’ bald head with its prominent fleshy neck shows the extent to which the artist (who enlisted in the army as a volunteer) has already relapsed into a state of animal aggression. His face is almost entirely cast into a threatening dark, from under protruding brows his highlighted eyeballs glower at the observer as if signalling his readiness to attack any opponent. As a contemporary of Freud and other anthropological sceptics such as H.G. Wells or G. Benn, Dix makes use of War images to provide alarming glimpses of what is beneath the veneer of civilization. |
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