If Die Neue Sachlichkeit's painters wanted to be recognizably different from the Expressionists artist, they did't make a good job on that. However, they really did a good job on making interesting and really beautiful paintings.
George Grosz's paintings, for example, not only share the same weird style of many Expressionists painters, but also the same kind of subject-matters. The characters portrayed in Grosz's works are really expressive themselves, but as a whole, his paintings can also be mistaken with a Futurist's and even a semi-Cubist's creation.
 |
| In Grosz's 'Eclipse of the Sun', we can recognize some expressive characters and the presence of a skull in the lower right corner (usually portrayed in Expressionism), but some other shapes can remind us of Cubism, and the subject-matter itself seems kind of Futurist. |
Otto Dix's paintings also seemed really Expressionist, as they portrayed the feelings of the world because of the war.
 |
| Dix's 'War Wounded', for example, portrays a man whose face has been deformed in the war. We just have to take a look at his remaining eye to discover what he is feeling. |
Mack Beckmann made portrays of himself. There's nothing left to say, that is highly Expressionist!
 |
| Max Beckmann's 'Self-Protrait with Tuxedo' |
You're exactly right. These painting styles all start to overlap. It is helpful to TEACH them separately, because there really were different movements, but the labels do stop being the whole story at a certain point.
ReplyDelete