| Die Neue
Sachlichkeit (The New Realism)
http://www.indiana.edu/~pb20s/german/week8/neuesach.htm
|
After the inflation of 1923 a period of relative calm
was experience in Germany, and Expressionism and Dada seemed
less in keeping with the spirit of the times. There was a
return to realism, but a realism that reflected the
distortion and sense of the grotesque of Expressionism, the
radical alienation of Dada, and the continuing sense of
cultural conflict. This movement was dubbed the New Realism
(Die Neue Sachlichkeit) to distinguish it from older,
academic realism that was still popular among more
conservative Germans. While the old realism presented a
reassuring vision of the world, often focused on mythology,
history, or an idealized peasant life, the Neue
Sachlichkeit presented searing and often lurid images of
contemporary society. |
Christian Schad (1894-1982), Operation,
1929 |
Otto Dix, The Journalist Sylvia Von
Harden,
1926 |
Some of the new
realists in painting, like Max Beckmann, had already made a
reputation as Expressionists and then altered their style in
the mid-1920s, but most were part of a new generation that
had come to full consciousness during the war. Because of
that experience and the impact of Dada many of the most
famous of new realists in painting, like George Grosz and
Otto Dix, continued to produce works with a strong political
message. They quite often, for example, included in their
works images of veterans with amputated limbs begging in the
street, to remind their viewers of the horrors of the war
and the injustices of Weimar society. But other painters
combined the grotesque images of Expressionism, the chic
sophistication of the new consumer culture, and realist
techniques to produce depictions of contemporary scenes
without any obvious ideological agenda. Yet, even in the
more a- |
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political works there is generally an element of hip
cynicism that mocks the existing social order.
While the Neue
Sachlickkeit is most closely associated with painting,
similar trends can also be seen in other aspects of Weimar
culture in the mid-1920s. All Quiet on the Western Front is
but one example of a general return to realism in German
literature. In cinema the expressionist works of the teens
were replaced with more realistic films, such as
F.W.Murnau’s The Last Laugh (1924), G.W. Pabst’s
Joyless Streets (1925), and Fritz Lang’s, M (1931),
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Otto Dix, Portrait of My Parents, I,
1921
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Anton Räderscheidt, Self-Portrait,
1928 |
and
Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill’s popular play,
The Three Penny Opera (1928), also has many elements
that link it with the new realism.
George Grosz: Der Monteur John
Heartfield, 192 |
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