new objectivity


new objectivity

(Ger. Neue Sachlichkeit), German art movement of the 1920s. The chief painters of the movement were George GroszGrosz, George
, 1893–1959, German-American caricaturist, draughtsman, and painter, b. Berlin. Before and during World War I he contributed drawings on proletarian themes to Illustration and other German periodicals. He was associated with the Dada group at that time.
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 and Otto DixDix, Otto,
1891–1969, German painter and draftsman. Dix fought in World War I and returned to Düsseldorf haunted by the horrors he had witnessed. In 1924 he published War, a series of 50 etchings, horrifying visions of war's victims executed with great clarity.
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, who were sometimes called verists. They created styles of bitter realism and protest that mirrored the disillusionment and political upheaval that followed World War I. New objectivity retained the intense emotionality of earlier movements in German art (see BrückeBrücke, Die
[Ger.,=the bridge], German expressionist art movement, lasting from 1905 to 1913. Influenced by the art of Jugendstil (the German equivalent of art nouveau), Van Gogh, and the primitive sculpture of Africa and the South Seas, the Brücke
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 and Blaue ReiterBlaue Reiter, der
[Ger.,=the blue rider], German expressionist art movement, lasting from 1911 to 1914. It took its name from a painting by Kandinsky, Le cavalier bleu.
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), but it abandoned the symbolism of expressionismexpressionism,
term used to describe works of art and literature in which the representation of reality is distorted to communicate an inner vision. The expressionist transforms nature rather than imitates it.
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 for direct social commentary. Max BeckmannBeckmann, Max
, 1884–1950, German painter. A member of the Berlin secession from 1908 to 1911, he was impressionistic in his early style. A subsequent expressionistic phase was altered c.1917 by the savage new objectivity of George Grosz.
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 produced works in a related, though more philosophical, vein.

Bibliography

See S. Barron and S. Eckmann, New Objectivity (museum catalog, 2015).