Berlin Streetscene

George Grosz

Words by Terrie Dai

 

Title: Berlin Streetscene

Work: Watercolour

Artist: George Grosz (1893 - 1959)

Work Date: 1930

Materials: Watercolour, ink and Oil On Paper

Style: Expressionism

Size:h60 x w46 cm ( h23.6 x w18,1 in)

Collection: Private Collection

 

 

Appreciation

An elegant lady in heels and a fur collar haughtily curls her nose at a dapper gentleman who winks at her in a fashionable street. Only interested in their own flirtatious exchanges, they do not notice the old man in a threadbare suit beggung for money.

 

This watercolour scathingly caricatures the appalling social conditions of post-First World War Germany. A satire on the affected patriotism, selfish greed and depraved sensuality of the period, it is one of many which the artist produced that have a nightmarish quality.

 

Grosz's disgust at a decaying society of distorted morals, propaganda and self-indulgence led him to vent his anger through his biting satirical caricatures, and eventually to emigrate to the USA. His work gradually came to combine the satire of old with a new romanticism. He began his carrer as a caricaturist and became a leading member of the Dada group in Berlin after 1918.]

 

About the Artist

 

George Grosz (July 26, 1893 – July 6, 1959) was a German artist known especially for his savagely caricatural rawings of Berlin life in the 1920s. He was a prominent member of the Berlin Dada and New Objectivity group during the Weimar Republic before he emigrated to the United States in 1933.

 

 

作品名稱:柏林街景

作品:水彩

藝術家:佐治·格羅茲

創作日期: 1930

材料:水彩,油彩,水墨,紙張等多種材料。

風格:表現主義

尺寸:高60 x 寬46 cm ( 高23.6 x 寬18,1 in)

收藏:私人收藏

 

欣賞

 

一位穿着高跟鞋和皮草的時髦高貴女士,正在街上漫步。迎面走來一位衣冠楚楚的紳士,她不禁向他拋送秋波,而紳士也立刻色迷迷的回應。他們專注於眉目傳情,在他們自己的世界裡。而另一個衣衫襤樓的乞討老人,雖然就在他們近旁,但顯然和他們是屬於兩個世界,兩個階層的。

 

 

這幅水彩漫畫,以激烈諷刺的手法描繪了在第一次世界大戰時期,德國社會貧富懸殊的現象,猛烈的抨擊自私,貪婪,墮落,淫蕩的社會風氣。這是眾多畫家爭相表現的噩夢式作品。

 

 

格羅茲對當時社會的腐朽,人性扭曲,自我放縱的現象,十分厭惡。他用犀利的手法,畫出一幅幅“觸目驚心”的諷刺畫,來宣洩自己的憤怒。

 

 

後來,他移民美國。他在舊有的諷刺風格中,融入了新浪漫主義,而逐漸形成一個新風格。他的藝術生涯也逐漸走向成功,並在1918年後,成為達達畫派的重要畫家之一。

 

 

 

 

關於藝術家

 

佐治·格羅茲(1893 - 1959)是著名的德國藝術家。他狂野,辛辣筆觸描繪的,柏林生活的諷刺漫畫,在20世紀尤為著名。