Dead Horse, from War

Otto Dix’s variable aesthetic choices emphasized his interest in previous Germanic artists. For example, in this highly worked print, the tuft of weeds silhouetted at the top of the image could easily reflect his study of premodern works by Albrecht Dürer, Matthias Grünewald, and other artists he admired. These devices distract viewers from the reality of death and destruction before their eyes, contributing to Dix’s overall point that the unthinking attitude toward the war was an unresolved problem in Weimar Germany.