George Grosz: Pointing a Finger at Beaurocracy
Early 20th century Germany was an ideological melting pot for both artists and society. Dealing with both an industrial revolution that had quickly urbanized many areas of Germany and the destruction and defeat in WWI, artists were quickly rebelling against the society which they thought had failed them. Using non-traditional, expressive mark making and new interpretations of subject matter, the German Expressionist movement began to take form. These artists sought refuge from industrialization by returning to "primitive" subject matter and technique in an attempt to draw closer to nature. One of the artists in this movement was George Grosz, who was known for his highly sociopolitical works that cast a critical eye on contemporary society. After briefly discussing the history of Grosz and the background of the German Expressionist movement, I will examine how his lithograph, Street in Berlin Friedrichstrasse, reflects to the political climate in which it was created, and how it directly relates to the German Expressionist style. George Grosz, born in Berlin in 1893, was raised in Germany and attended the Royal Academy of Art in Dresden from 1911-1912. He began his career as a cartoonist, creating caricatures and quick sketch
Never feeling like he fit into the American culture, he moved to Berlin in 1959 and died a broken and depressed man in an accident that same year. So it was, with their primitive ideals, rudimentary techniques, rebellious attitude, and a desire to evoke an emotional response through their art, the German Expressionists began to emerge on the art scene. A cynical and politically outspoken man, Grosz latched on to the German Expressionist ideals and began to interpret them in his own way. His cynical criticism of upper class life and his disdain for industrialization, although apparent in many of his other works, are nicely summed up in this print. During the 1890's printmaking was experiencing a rebirth, and many artists felt that the techniques themselves were primitive and were excited to use them in new artistic endeavors. With this technique, he was able to keep the gestural, cartoon-like lines so popular in many of his prints and drawings. Although the subject matter is not typical of the Die Brucke artists, their disdain for the bourgeoisie society is shared by Grosz, who often depicts this sentiment in his work. The print is not a depiction of a bustling, happy city, but the depiction of a foreboding, unrestful urban scene. His disillusionment with the war and the visible social distinction between the working class and upper class was fodder for many of his anti-military statements and anti-bourgeoisie art. For many of the German Expressionist artists, "primitivism" was their main influence and subject matter; Grosz, however, turned to political and sociological themes in his prints, paintings and drawings. " By depicting this scene, he hoped to comment on the wreckage the war and industrialization had wreaked on his country, the wreckage not necessarily of physical structures, but of the mental well-being of the German people. These figures, along with the prostitutes and the man consuming a bottle of alcohol in the first story window, symbolize the moral destruction and death taking place in the streets of Berlin at the time. As an active member in the Communist Party, he sought to create that would reflect the political and social tambour of the working class through cynical satires of the effects of capitalist industrialization.
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