Art and Aerial Bombing

Otto Dix. Lens Being Bombed (Lens wird mit Bomben belegt)

from The War (Der Krieg), 1924. Etching and drypoint.

Picasso's famous painting Guernica is considered one of the most powerful works of art about the horrors of aerial warfare to helpless civilians. But Guernica is a surrealist  painting that has almost as many interpretations as viewers. Otto Dix's WWI print, typical of the New Objectivity is showing it like it is and doesn't require interpretation. The terror in the faces of the of the women and children running from the Allied biplane is intense and can be experienced by the viewer without an explanation. The plane is low and large, and almost touches the roofs on both sides of the street. With it's nose pointing down it looks like it  is going to crash in the street. The dead people lying on the street make it clear that the plane deliberately strafed or bombed the street. The woman in the foreground has a narrow distorted face similar to Edvard Munch's The Scream, made 31 years earlier. The image might have been more famous if it were a German plane committing the atrocity.

Dix served as a machine gunner in the German Army from 1914 to 1918 and was wounded several times. He kept a journal of what he experienced, and in 1924, fifty of his etchings were published as Der Krieg.

Dead man in the mud

Wounded Soldier

Dead sentry in the trenches

Skull

Stormtroops advancing under a gas attack

Mealtime in the Trenches 

Soldier Raping a Nun. (not published in the original series)

Dix's War Series (Der Krieg) is a vivid gruesome representation of the horrors of the Great War. His prints are not well known. However, with the hundred year anniversary of WWI they have had more visibility in museums.They are small and can fill a small area that doesn't get that much attention from viewers. Guernica, over 25 feet wide with its larger than life figures and symbols, usually has a large crowd.

There had been strategic bombing in WWI, but Guernica is the first time carpet bombing or saturation bombing was used against a civilian population. The WWI bombings were done by declared belligerents. The German and Italian airplanes aiding Franco, were using the Basque town of Guernica in 1937 to perfect their Blitz strategies. The attack was on a Monday – the market day in Guernica, a town of 7,000 that was 30 miles behind the front lines. The Nationalists would point out that Guernica was a communications center with Soviet advisors and international journalists filing stories. The 2016 film Guernica centers around a fictional love story between an American reporter and a censor for the Republican government. 

During the First World War, Zeppelin bombings of Great Britain were provoking fear amongst the civilian population.

The Daily Mail set up a fund to pay for death and damages in Zeppelin attacks.

There were rumors of German sympathizers using headlights to guide the airships. The Zeppelins had the nickname of baby killers.

British dirigibles needed to patrol the skies and pass over cities. Warning signs were posted to allay fear.

After the war, plaques were seen around cities. A generation later Great Britain would endure more strategic bombing.

Strategic bombing continually increased during the 20th Century. During the entire First World War, 100 tons of bombs from airships and 130 tons from airplanes were dropped on Great Britain during a period of 4 years. At Guernica, in 1937, in a little over two hours, 40 tons were dropped. Three years later, the Luftwaffe dropped 197 tons over Rotterdam. Five years later the Allies dropped 3,400 tons over Dresden during four raids between February 13 and 15, 1945. Later that year, the atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima had the equivalent of 15,000 tons of conventional bombs. 3 Days later the atomic explosion over Nagasaki had a 21,000 ton equivalent.

Otto Dix became one of Hitler's degenerate artists and his works were removed from German museums. Hitler's preferred style was Heroic Nationalism to inspire the German people for a coming war. Images of dead Germans rotting in a muddy trench wouldn't be very inspiring. Hitler had served in the Great War and he was enraged by anything that disgraced the image of the German soldier. Like other artists of the New Objectivity, Dix used sarcasm to show the folly of the war. 

Otto Dix, The Match Seller, 1921.

The Match Seller, reveals a blind veteran missing both legs. The three well dressed people from higher classes, who probably did not serve in the trenches or as nurses in battlefield hospitals, are hurrying away from him. Only their lower extremities are seen. The little daschund is lifting his leg and urinating on the veteran's stump.

Otto Dix,War Cripples, 1920.

The caustic irony in this sketch is that the three men who have lost their legs are now parading past a shoe maker's shop with a boot in the window  and  a "Schuhmacherei" sign.

Otto Dix,Two Victims of Capitalism, 1923.

Two Victims of Capitalism shows a prostitute with a syphilitic lesion on her face that looks like a bullet hole and a veteran with a battlefield wound that is shaped like a vagina. The original title was Whore With War Cripple, but was renamed when it was reprinted in the communist journal Die Pleite. Large gaping facial wounds were often seen in surviving veterans. World War I ordinance did not have the explosive power to create small high velocity fragments.The explosion killed fewer troops but the larger slower moving fragments caused large soft tissue wounds.







Which style of art makes the strongest anti war statement? I am definitely not in the majority when I favor Otto Dix over Picasso. In art and cinema certain works take on a life of their own and become classics. A few months after the bombing of Guernica, Picasso's painting was unveiled at the Spanish Pavilion of the Paris International Exposition. Most initial reactions were negative. A German fair guide described it as a hodgepodge of body parts that a child could have made. The Soviets would have preferred a Socialist Realist style that gives hope for the future. The New York art critic, Clement Greenberg didn't like it. Even Spanish Republican leaders would have preferred a more realistic representation. After the Fair, the painting was part of a European tour. When Franco won the Civil War, Guernica went to The United States to raise funds for Spanish war refugees. Picasso didn't want the painting returned to Spain until democracy was restored. It resided at the Museum of Modern Art in New York until 1981. During the Vietnam War the painting was spray painted by a protestor. Controversy about the painting still continues. The organization Etxerat, a society of  family members of prisoners and exiles of the Basque National Liberation Movement, use the lamp symbol in Guernica as their emblem. Basque Nationalists continue to demand the painting be transferred from Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid to the Guggenheim Bilbao Museum, in the Basque Autonomous community of Spain.

Near the entrance to the Security Council at the United Nations, is a full size tapestry of Guernica. Press interviews would be filmed there.  A blue curtain was placed in front of the tapestry so Collin Powell could convince the world why we had to invade Iraq. Now there is a more traditional backdrop away from the tapestry.

Art appreciation classes have become a GenEd staple at most schools. There probably isn't an introductory level class that doesn't cover Guernica.