Otto Dix's Metropolis

[Music] my last video was about otto dix's portrait of the journalist sylvia von harden and in that video i said that the weimar republic and especially berlin was both crime-filled and decadent it was a hotbed for both cultural and social progress but also drug abuse and criminality you'd see poverty and brawls but also luxurious cabarets and partying to represent the fancy side of the weimar republic i showed this image autodix's metropolis the painting reveals the luxurious side of berlin jewelry is omnipresent on the many women in the scene elegant dresses and suits are worn as

a band plays jazz music the wealthy dance in a vividly colored room just like in sylvia von harden's portrait but this image the red room in which people are partying is only half of the artwork in fact metropolis is a modern triptych [Music] triptychs were most commonly employed for religious paintings featuring a main panel in the middle and two secondary panels on either sides very often tryptic paintings would fold on themselves making it easier to transport them a famous example of a triptych is peter paul rubin's elevation of the cross where you see a single

scene deployed over three panels a different example the garden of earthly delights depicts three different scenes in a linear form the creation of adam and eve the garden of earthly delights and finally hell in metropolis the three panels are used differently it isn't one single scene nor are the panels linear if we look at the left panel you see first and foremost a crippled veteran standing on two wooden legs underneath him is a dog and another veteran lying on the ground hunched over his crutches he looks up at prostitutes who are looking back at him

dismissively a ghostly woman appears at the end of a tunnel on his left the scene is set under a bridge suggesting that this is where both veterans live on the right panel the scene is similar but not quite the same there is once again women who have been identified as prostitutes the foremost one having the shape of a vulva these prostitutes however are what was called high-class prostitutes a distinction that was made by the different clothes these women are wearing but also by the setting in which they are these women aren't under a bridge but

on a sidewalk next to some fancy architecture an amputated war veteran once again appears on the floor saluting his wounds exposed to the public as he begs for money these two side panels are obviously very different from the middle one and they change the meaning of the whole artwork quite radically while the middle panel is harmonious and horizontal the side panels are tense and vertical this verticality is quite important as it implies a hierarchy with at the bottom of the pyramid a veteran from world war one world war one unsurprisingly had catastrophic repercussions on germany

the treaty of versailles had germany pay war reparations plunging the country in economic uncertainty many soldiers if they hadn't died in the trenches came back wounded and crippled from the war physically and mentally many women were wives in 1914 and became widows by 1918 and to them prostitution was one of a few alternatives auto dicks illustrated the contrast between life on the streets of berlin and life in its nightclubs and he did it brilliantly using the triptych by positioning two outdoor scenes on either side of an indoor scene this way the indoor scene is boxed

in as if walls were surrounding it it becomes the center of attention it becomes the main event and on either sides on the fringes as if pushed out of the way you see what happens on the streets you see the consequences of war there is in ottodix's artworks an unbearable feeling of angst his paintings are infused with anxiety metropolis is no exception dicks revealed a social angst a collective anxiety thank you so much for watching thank you for liking and subscribing if you have already and i'd like to thank especially you design i write kohler

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