My
last post about my day job started me thinking about the subject of
anger and art, how they interrelate, and how often artists channel their
anger through their art. I've certainly channeled anger through visual
art myself, and I'll address my own experience venting my anger
creatively in a later post. But the first artist who comes to mind when
I consider the issue of anger in art is George Grosz.
Grosz was a German, born in time to be exactly the right age to fight in World War One, the so-called War To End All Wars, which obviously failed to end any wars, and could barely drag to an end itself. What it did NOT fail to do was to slaughter an entire generation of German, French, and British young men. Frightening advances in military technology meant that armies also had more efficient and deadly ways of killing and maiming each other. Poison gas, heavy caliber machine guns, and terrifying artillery barrages produced horrifying death tolls and heartbreaking suffering on those who survived. The casualty lists of the war were so staggering, and so unbelievable, that they still have the power to shock. In the Battle of Verdun alone, the total death toll was an unbelievable 250,000 men, with a further half a million men wounded. What's worse, the enemy combatants spent most of the war slaughtering each other for little to no gains in territory or strategic advantage. It ended up being a war of attrition.
It was against this cauldron of destruction that Grosz acquired his well-honed rage. Grosz had always been a staunch individualist, a rebel, and a pessimist. However, when he joined the German army at the beginning of the war, he found himself thoroughly loathing the Prussian war machine and its adherents. Fortunately for him, he was declared unfit for combat due to a sinus operation, only to be called up later in the war when the German Army began running out of live bodies to throw to the cannons. I have read accounts that say Grosz nearly wound up in front of a firing squad, only to win an eleventh hour reprieve. By the end of the war, Grosz's natural pessimism had curdled into a jaundiced view of humanity in general, and Germans in particular.
Of his fellow countrymen, he had this to say: "What do I see?...only unkempt, fat, deformed, incredibly ugly men and (above all) women, degenerate creatures (although a fat, red, plump, lazy man is here considered to be a 'stately gentleman'), with bad juices (from beer) and hips that are too fat and short..."
When Germany's postwar chaos coalesced into the messy, unstable political experiement that was the Weimar Republic, Grosz found targets everywhere, from the stolid, sensualist bourgeoisie, to the corrupt, venal capitalists and industrialists, on down to the blind, enabling clergy and, most hated of all, the Prussian military upper-class officers, who started the rumor--soon appropriated by the new Nazi Party-- that Germany had been "stabbed in the back" by treacherous politicians, rather than defeated in the field thanks to the incompetence and bungling of the officer corps.
Grosz published books and portfolios of drawings, watercolors, and
prints, all of which were scathing social critiques, considered
classics by some and assaults agains decency by others. Many of them
remain in print. At least two of them offended enough people that he
wound up on trial, both for slandering the military (in Gott Mit Uns), and for producing "pornography" (in Ecce Homo).
I own a copy of Ecce Homo; it's one of my favorite works by any
artist. The art is pungent, funny, bitter, sensual, and tragic. And
while many of the drawings are sexually suggestive and erotic, none of
them are explicit in portraying sexual intercourse.
Grosz also painted in oils: dense, complex, multilayered paintings in sensual, lurid colors that portrayed the German people, and by extension the entire nation, as a chaotic, violent, bestial organism, enslaved as a nation to corrupt social institutions, and as individuals to their own base appetites and instincts. On Grosz's canvases, as they soon proved to be in real life, the pillars of Weimar society proved unequal to the task of reining in the political violence and social degradations that marred German society between the wars. As soon as the Nazis rose to power, Grosz left Germany for New York, where he settled until the late 1950s, when he returned to Berlin.
The Berlin he knew in 1932 was not the same one he returned to. Most of the Berlin he had known was destroyed in the Second World War. He had only been in the city a couple of months when he died there of a heart attack in 1959.
I often wonder what he must have been feeling and thinking, during his last weeks in his homeland. At least this time, he didn't have time to become disillusioned, all over again.
George Grosz (source:Wikipedia)
Grosz was a German, born in time to be exactly the right age to fight in World War One, the so-called War To End All Wars, which obviously failed to end any wars, and could barely drag to an end itself. What it did NOT fail to do was to slaughter an entire generation of German, French, and British young men. Frightening advances in military technology meant that armies also had more efficient and deadly ways of killing and maiming each other. Poison gas, heavy caliber machine guns, and terrifying artillery barrages produced horrifying death tolls and heartbreaking suffering on those who survived. The casualty lists of the war were so staggering, and so unbelievable, that they still have the power to shock. In the Battle of Verdun alone, the total death toll was an unbelievable 250,000 men, with a further half a million men wounded. What's worse, the enemy combatants spent most of the war slaughtering each other for little to no gains in territory or strategic advantage. It ended up being a war of attrition.
British Trench during Battle of Somme (source: Wikipedia)
It was against this cauldron of destruction that Grosz acquired his well-honed rage. Grosz had always been a staunch individualist, a rebel, and a pessimist. However, when he joined the German army at the beginning of the war, he found himself thoroughly loathing the Prussian war machine and its adherents. Fortunately for him, he was declared unfit for combat due to a sinus operation, only to be called up later in the war when the German Army began running out of live bodies to throw to the cannons. I have read accounts that say Grosz nearly wound up in front of a firing squad, only to win an eleventh hour reprieve. By the end of the war, Grosz's natural pessimism had curdled into a jaundiced view of humanity in general, and Germans in particular.
"Pillars of Society"
(source: abcgallery.com)
Of his fellow countrymen, he had this to say: "What do I see?...only unkempt, fat, deformed, incredibly ugly men and (above all) women, degenerate creatures (although a fat, red, plump, lazy man is here considered to be a 'stately gentleman'), with bad juices (from beer) and hips that are too fat and short..."
Eclipse of the Sun (source: abcgallery.com)
When Germany's postwar chaos coalesced into the messy, unstable political experiement that was the Weimar Republic, Grosz found targets everywhere, from the stolid, sensualist bourgeoisie, to the corrupt, venal capitalists and industrialists, on down to the blind, enabling clergy and, most hated of all, the Prussian military upper-class officers, who started the rumor--soon appropriated by the new Nazi Party-- that Germany had been "stabbed in the back" by treacherous politicians, rather than defeated in the field thanks to the incompetence and bungling of the officer corps.
Germany: A Winter's Tale
(source: abcgallery.com)
Dusk (source: abcgallery.com)
Grosz also painted in oils: dense, complex, multilayered paintings in sensual, lurid colors that portrayed the German people, and by extension the entire nation, as a chaotic, violent, bestial organism, enslaved as a nation to corrupt social institutions, and as individuals to their own base appetites and instincts. On Grosz's canvases, as they soon proved to be in real life, the pillars of Weimar society proved unequal to the task of reining in the political violence and social degradations that marred German society between the wars. As soon as the Nazis rose to power, Grosz left Germany for New York, where he settled until the late 1950s, when he returned to Berlin.
"The City" (source: abcgallery.com)
The Berlin he knew in 1932 was not the same one he returned to. Most of the Berlin he had known was destroyed in the Second World War. He had only been in the city a couple of months when he died there of a heart attack in 1959.
Grosz in 1954 (source: Life.com)
I often wonder what he must have been feeling and thinking, during his last weeks in his homeland. At least this time, he didn't have time to become disillusioned, all over again.
Posted 7th October 2010 by thomasg in ineedartandcoffee.blogspot.com
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