The first film to be labeled Expressionist as well as become emblematic of Weimar Cinema was The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. It was able to "critique society while also taking up the tools of Expressionist yearnings… in [the] wake of defeat of WWI."[i] The film captured Expressionism’s increasingly pessimistic and anxious tone that began with artists like Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938) and continued on with Otto Dix (1891-1969). Through its examination of Interwar German pathology and the search for reality behind the superficial world that surrounded society, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari became a film about a "people [who] were infected with conflicts, crime, instability and delusion.”[ii] The tale told upon the screen was one of madness and chaos amidst a demoniac landscape of acute angles, stark light and lurking shadows. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is about a man named Francis and how his life was altered by events that transpired in the small town of Holstenwall. During the town’s annual fair, a mystical and mysterious man named Dr. Caligari arrives and plans on showcasing his somnambulist (sleepwalker), Cesare. Francis and his friend, Alan, decide to attend the fair and visit Dr. Caligari’s exhibit. The doctor states that when his somnambulist awakens, one can ask him any question “for he knows the past and sees the future.”[iii] Shortly thereafter, the town descends into chaos—struck with two murders, including Alan’s, and the kidnapping of Francis’ love, Jane, by Cesare. As all of Holstenwall pursues Dr. Caligari and Cesare, it is soon discovered that the mystical doctor is none other than the director of the local insane asylum; Cesare is his patient. Francis concludes his tale by stating that the evil doctor was locked away for good and order was restored. Nevertheless, it is soon revealed that Francis is not the film’s hero. Rather, he, Jane and Cesare are all members of the insane asylum and the man he believes to be Dr. Caligari is indeed the director of that very institution. The final scene concludes with Francis, not Dr. Caligari, as the madman locked up forever within the confines of his cell. After finishing the film, the viewer realizes The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari blurs the lines between sanity and insanity. Staying true to the Expressionist ideals of the time, the film reveals the inner truths behind the superficiality of German society while also questioning the authority of those in power. Following the destruction of World War I, the questioning of authority, its abuse of power and the chaos it created, came to the forefront of Expressionist commentary. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari explores how people of influence and their ability to exploit others result in societal decay through the characters of Dr. Caligari and Cesare. The doctor “ruthlessly violates all human rights and values”[iv] when he uses Cesare as a mere puppet for murder and the furthering his diabolical agenda. Cesare can be viewed as the metaphorical WWI soldier, forced to kill for the powers that be.[v] In addition to highlighting the ever-present madness in authority, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari also served to examine the truth behind humanity’s perceived existence. Representative of the German people during the Interwar period, the main characters of the film are not as they appear. Despite their human form, Dr. Caligari, Francis, Cesare and Jane are “scarcely convincing as living creatures than the true monsters”[vi] they are revealed to be. This transcendence from human to creature is captured as a result of distinctive, yet precise application of character make-up that recalls the inhuman mask-like faces of Kirchner’s Streetwalkers series [Figure 1] and his face in Self-Portrait as an Invalid [Figure 2]. These are not faces of men and women, but caricatures of the monsters within. Their features are exaggerated and distorted. Faces are lightened to a ghostly white while eyes and lips are demonically blackened [Figure 3]. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari’s facial treatment of these particular subjects reminds the viewer that the character’s full psychology is not entirely revealed. Just like world around them, they are not what they seem, thus, explaining the emphasis on the eyes in particular. As seen most visibly on Cesare, the make-up application is heaviest surrounding the character’s eyes. Once again, reiterating that what the character is seeing with their eyes may not be the reality they perceive. Similar to the characters within the film, many German citizens felt they, too, wavered between sanity and madness. World War I turned many, especially its soldiers, into monsters, forcing people to see and do unfathomable things. Furthermore, the German people grew jaded and no longer understood their identity: were they fallen war heroes or monsters that created the destruction of The Great War? The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari comments on this internal struggle through the way it constructs its characters and reveals their true natures. Another theme of Interwar German society that the film comments on is that of concealed danger. Encroaching shadows and piercing light create “an intangible threat existing nowhere, but felt everywhere.”[vii] Evil lurks within those shadows. The film employs several German and Scandinavian lighting techniques, one of which is Dämmerung.[viii] The technique creates a “world of twilight in which the inanimate can readily become alive with no warning.”[ix]Darkness consumes large expanses of the screen and shadows become otherworldly as they are contrasted against sharp whites [Figure 4]). This sense of living shadows possessed by evil is a direct comment on the pervasive mindset of post-WWI Germans citizens as many believed they had been ‘stabbed in the back’ by an internal enemy following the war. Further emphasis on light and shadow in the film comes from a practice known as “masking.” Shapes are arranged on-screen, framing the intended subject while those outside of the masked frame are blacked-out.[x]The effect is unsettling and claustrophobic. Characters become trapped within their environment as the darkness closes in around them. No sense of joy is conveyed in the lighting techniques employed in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Rather, the film captures the pessimism so distinctive of both Interwar Germany and Expressionism as anxieties “about the future developed into extremes of utter despair and wild expectation.”[xi] German citizens were slowly descending into madness as they felt closed off and trapped within their menacing environments. Through its use of lighting, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari poignantly comments on the dominant attitudes concerning the very real, but intangible threats affecting the German people during the Interwar period. It further explores and comments on this post-war mentality through its definitive Expressionistic set design. Angles composed of razor blades pierce the eyes and dizzying labyrinths confuse the senses, as the viewer becomes lost within the quintessentially German Expressionist set designs of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. The film's architecture is the keystone that transforms the overall mood and atmosphere, allowing it to enter into the realm of Expressionism.[xii] Although highly stylized and distorted, the film’s ominous ambiance is highly symbolic of life within Interwar German cities, especially Berlin. Set designers, Herrman Warm, Walter Reimann and Walter Röhrig were members of a German Expressionist movement known as Der Sturm (The Storm) that emerged from Berlin in 1912.[xiii] Der Sturm fought "against the type of humanity characteristic of the departing age,"[xiv]the type that led to the depravity of the Great War and the destruction of the German people. These artistic ideologies were then made tangible through Warm, Röhrig and Reimann's stylized set design of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Sets were constructed with only four components: paper, plaster, paint and cardboard.[xv] Paint application is flat and scrawled or slashed onto the cardboard with bold outlines mapping the buildings' stylized form [Figure 5]. An overall asymmetry dominates the design, reminding the viewer this is an altered reality. The inherently flat surfaces found within The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari emphasize the two-dimensionality existing within the context of a three-dimensional world. Senses are disoriented as shapes are stylized—distorted from their natural form. Windows appear as mere slashes within a wall. Streets lead nowhere, zigzagging without a purpose. Buildings are tilted, looming over the city's inhabitants as if preparing to pounce upon its next unsuspecting victim. "Rooms and enclosed spaces, too, bear in on the human beings with a claustrophobia all their own."[xvi] Such an effect is achieved from the designers' extensive use of acute angles and extreme diagonals. The result is unsettling and emphasizes the anxieties felt by the German people during this time. Furthermore, the abstraction of the buildings serves to highlight the sinister world that lurks beneath the perceived reality. Ultimately, the visible world within The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is transformed into an angular "axis of uncertainty"[xvii] that best reflects the condition of Interwar Germany. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari confronts lucidity and reason by forcing the viewer to stare into the face of madness and insanity. These juxtapositions serve to distort one's perceptions into an incoherent reality. By means of estranging the viewer’s mental perceptions of reality through these contrasts, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari reveals the demons and disturbed inner world that existed within the minds of German citizens during this time. Like Francis, Germany was still trying to identify itself as a proud hero. Yet, lurking deep within the "Gothic labyrinthine settings"[xviii] of their disillusioned souls was a figure like Dr. Caligari, waiting to pursue his destructive, maniacal passions.The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari made it clear thatGermany was not what it appeared to be, and neither were its citizens. As a result, the German people were forced to look within themselves and confront their true nature while trying to understand what it truly meant to be a hero. Figure 1 Figure 2 Figure 3 Figure 4 Figure 5 ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
i Ward, Weimar Surfaces, 143. ii Ashmore, “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari as Fine Art,” 418. iii Weine, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, film. iv Scheunemann, Expressionist Films, 128. v Ibid., 129. vi Titford, “Object-Subject Relationships,” 19. vii Ibid. viii Ibid., 21. ix Ibid. x Ibid., 24. xi Miesel, Voices of German Expressionism, 6. xii Scheunemann, Expressionist Films, 136. xiii Schreyer, “What is Der Sturm?,” The Era of German Expressionism, 194. xiv Raabe, The Era of German Expressionism, 11. xv Hake, “Expressionism and Cinema,” Companion to Literature of German Expressionism, 328. xvi Titford, “Object-Subject Relationships,” 19. xvii Ashmore, “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari as Fine Art,” 414. xviii Schaal, “Space of the Psyche,” 12.
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Few artists are as known for their graphic images of war or their "caustic portraits of German post-war society"[i] as painter, Otto Dix. Born in 1891 in Untermhaus, Germany, Dix was interested in the arts from an early age. He followed in a similar path as many earlier Expressionists by moving to Dresden in 1910 where he studied at the School of Arts and Crafts. It was here, in the birthplace of Die Brucke (The Bridge), that Dix became heavily influenced by the Expressionistic gestural style as well as the philosophical of ideals of Nietzsche.[ii] Despite his growing interest in art, Dix volunteered as a machine gunner shortly after war was declared in 1915. He served in the entirety of WWI until its end in 1918, even though he was wounded several times on the field of battle. After being stationed in the trenches of the Western Front and witnessing the horrific brutality which took place there, Dix "emerged with a scathing view of mankind"[iii] at the end of his service. Following the war, Dix settled back in Dresden to continue his artistic studies. Although his work maintained Expressionistic aspects, he began to usher in a new movement along with George Grosz (1893-1959) called Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity). Dix executed his unique form of social commentary as he "unsentimentally examined the decadence and underlying social inequality of post-war German Society."[iv] When compared to Kirchner as the prototype for Expressionism, Dix’s paintings lacked the impasto, strong juxtapositions or abstracted forms. Nonetheless, his works still captured the essence of Expressionism. Dix’s subjects--despite their heightened realism--are distorted to mere caricatures, his finely painted lines slice upon the canvas enhancing the angles of his figures and his environments capture the same menacing presence. Furthermore, the artistic nature of Dix’s war imagery is clearly influenced by Gothic master and Expressionist forefather, Matthias Grünewald (1470-1528). He may have been a founding father of Neue Sachlichkeit, but Dix was Expressionist to his core. Dix first received notoriety for his ability to turn a “clinical eye on the world and record its misery and pain with unreserved accuracy”[v] in his painting, War Cripples . By this time he Felt repelled by the sight of ex-soldiers exposing their deformations in the street. They became, for him, a symbol of the disillusionment engendered by the war, which he had initially greeted with such bull-necked aggression in 1914. Now all the Nietzschean hopes of renewal through destruction had vanished, and the enraged Dix devoted most of his energy in 1920 to an obsessive, savage and immensely disturbing sequence of war cripple paintings.[vi] War Cripples was the first in the provocative series by the same title. Exhibited in the First International Dada Fair in Berlin in 1920, the painting only escaped protest due to the other more controversial works being displayed alongside it.[vii] The image contains four male figures arranged in a frieze-like fashion along the canvas, each proudly donning their military uniforms and war wounds as they parade along the street. All are cripples, missing limbs from their time of service in the Great War. Bearing the scars of battle, their features are crude and distorted. Paint is applied upon the canvas with a precise line that emphasizes the angularity of the figures and their mechanical movements. Furthermore, it creates a space filled with figures and shapes that are inherently flat, recalling the film sets of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Figure 1). As for the painting’s color palette, little is known for it disappeared shortly after its appearance in the Degenerate Art Exhibition in 1937. In War Cripples, Dix created a powerful statement against the deluded self-image of the German people and its “pitifully maimed”[viii] soldiers. Dix painted the veterans of War Cripples as ruined[ix] grotesques, more machine than human; either by hobbling on their peg legs or pushed along in wheelchairs, the men proudly march the German streets unaware that they are not the glorious heroes they perceive. Yet, the soldiers happily march on, blinded by their pride. Furthermore, the figural composition recalls the friezes of ancient Greece, filled with the idealized forms of Classical gods and men (Figure 2). By creating this thematic contrast in War Cripples, Dix forces the German viewer to reconcile the difference between the heroes of old and the heroes of new. In doing so, he creates a scathing indictment of post-war society; no one was safe from Dix’s commentary in the painting. He attacked the military for butchering his generation, the public… for its fascination with these pathetic, reconstituted veterans and the cripples themselves for their undiminished national pride.[x] Just as Kirchner painted himself as a symbol of the sickness that overcame Germany following the war in his Self-Portrait as an Invalid (Figure 3), Dix uses the wounded soldiers in War Cripples as a metaphor for the dangers of the country’s national pride. Interwar German rhetoric held fast to the notion that Germany, despite its grievous losses and injuries, was still the glorious country it had been prior to WWI. Yet, the country struggled with its identity in the wake of its defeat. Dix was so critical of the German military, citizens and soldiers because all appeared to relish in the chance to redefine themselves as heroes and restore their pride. Another war provided for another opportunity to reconcile their conflicting identities. By portraying the soldiers of War Cripples as ruined, Dix is declaring that there is no glory in war, only death, destruction and decay; war would not afford them the outcome they so desired. Like the cripples within the painting, Germany and many of its citizens blindly marched on, forgetting the source of their disintegration. As Dix continued his War Cripples series, his work moved farther away from Expressionism and further into the harsh realism that characterized the Neue Sachlichkeit movement. Eventually Dix moved almost exclusively into war imagery as Germany moved closer to the tenth anniversary of the onset of The Great War. The country was at its most volatile point in 1924 following the riots between the communists and right-wing respondents at the inauguration of the national cenotaph commemorating those lost in the war.[xi] Controversy over Dix’s graphic war-scene, The Trench (Figure 4), also reached its nation-wide climax.[xii] Dix had painted an image of the real war within the trenches; the war that Germany lost, the war in which so many lives had been destroyed, not the war people sitting by their cozy stoves had dreamt of or idealized.[xiii] Both events “demonstrated that even a semblance of cohesion was unattainable”[xiv] as Germany was unable to grapple with its defeat or responsibility for The Great War. Figure 1 Figure 2 Figure 3 Figure 4 __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
i “German Expressionism: Otto Dix,” Museum of Modern Art, New York, online. ii Ibid. iii Ibid. iv “The Art of War,” National Gallery of Austria, online. v Padmore, “Expressionist Opera,” 46. vi Cork, A Bitter Truth, 251-2. vii Crockett, “Otto Dix and The Trench Affair,” 76. viii Cork, A Bitter Truth, 252. ix Fox, “Confronting Postwar Shame in Weimar Germany,” 249. x Crockett, “Otto Dix and The Trench Affair,” 72. xi Fox, “Confronting Postwar Shame in Weimar Germany,” 254. xii Crockett, “Otto Dix and the Trench Affair,” 77. xiii Ibid. xiv Fox, “Confronting Postwar Shame in Weimar Germany,” 254. **This is the fifth and final installment on the evolution of large-scale french painting as seen in the premiere wings of the Louvre in Paris**
Eugene Delacroix’s Death of Sardanapalus marks the complete shift from the Neo-classical Academic style to Romanticism and the full embrace of Orientalism. Delacroix was a friend and associate of Gericault and was clearly influenced by his work. Yet, as seen in Sardanapalus, he adopts the movement more fully. Initially, he was also trained in the Neo-classical style, but rejected it because of the aforementioned lack of expression and movement. As a result, he became the fierce competitor and rival to the Neo-classical champion, Ingres. Death of Sardanapalus does not use a modern story line. Rather, it stems from the pages of Byron’s tragedy about the Assyrian king and his conquered city. Delacroix takes liberties with the story and shows an apathetic Sardanapalus sitting atop his bed as he watches his men carry out his orders: kill all the concubines, servants and animals before the enemy can take them. Nonetheless, France was consumed with Orientalism at this period; so the theme of the painting is still quite contemporary despite the time in which it is set. The Near East was a favorite subject of Romanticism for the artists felt it was filled with the tragedy, mystery, exoticism and heroism their movement so loved to capture. Just as David favored Rome and the political messages within the historical paintings, Delacroix and other artists of Romanticism felt the Orient best suited their artistic tendencies. Gone is any semblance of order or balance within Sardanapalus. Delacroix creates a scene filled with drama and chaos, exemplifying Romanticism’s stylistic ideals. The chaos is necessary, however, to accurately capture the mood of the scene. Delacroix still understands the importance of line and draftsmanship, but uses it in a manner that is vastly different than Ingres or David. Brushstrokes are sketchy and expressive—loose as they swirl around creating the chaotic movement necessary for the moment. Figures and shapes are curvilinear, directing the eye into a circle throughout the composition as though the viewer were descending into a whirlpool of madness with Sardanapalus himself. He understands that figures in movement are not perfectly defined. In addition, Delacroix pays special attention to the use of color in Sardanapalus. Colors are rich and bold reds and golds. They best reflect the Orient and heighten the erotic scene as they contrast against the ivory of the concubines’ skin. No longer is color simply used to direct the eye or create a balanced painting, they are utilized to enhance the image that is presented to their viewer, to better convey what the artist is trying to depict: madness, bedlam, eroticism. Ultimately, Delacroix and Romanticism were vastly different from Neo-classicism, but it was necessary, because so were their artistic ideals. |
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