Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity)
Started: 1919
Ended: 1933
KEY ARTISTS
 | Otto Dix Quick View  Artist Page |
| Otto Dix |  |
| Otto Dix is one of modern painting's most savage satirists. After many artists had abandoned portraiture for abstraction in the 1910s, Dix injected sharp caricatures into his pictures of some of the leading lights of German society. His other narrative subjects are remembered for their indictment of corrupt and immoral life in the modern city. Art Story: Otto Dix Artist Page | ||
 | George Grosz Quick View Artist Page |
| George Grosz | |
| George Grosz was a German Dada and Neue Sachlichkeit artist. He was enamored of America and highly critical of Weimar society. Grosz immigrated to the United States just as Hitler came to power and opened a private art school in Des Moines. Art Story: George Grosz Artist Page | ||
 | Max Beckmann Quick View Artist Page |
| Max Beckmann | |
| Max Beckmann was a German artist, writer, and philosopher commonly associated with the Expressionist movement of the early twentieth century. He abhorred the label 'Expressionism', but juxtaposed scenes from reality by layering figures, colors, and shadows. Art Story: Max Beckmann Artist Page | ||
 | Christian Schad Quick View Artist Page |
| Christian Schad | |
| Schad was both an innovator in early Dada photograms, and later, painted iconic works of the New Objectivity movement. Art Story: Christian Schad Artist Page | ||
 | August Sander Quick View Artist Page |
| August Sander | |
| Referred to as the most important German portrait photographer of the twentieth century, August Sander's landmark series, People of the 20th Century, depict the citizens of the Weimar Republic, no matter of class or standing. Art Story: August Sander Artist Page | ||
 | Rudolf Schlichter Quick View Further External Info  |
| Rudolf Schlichter | |
| Rudolf Schlichter was a German painter and a key artist in the early-twentieth-century New Objectivity movement, which included many of Germany's most progressive artists prior to the Third Reich's rise to power. Schlichter's work ranged from the traditionally figurative and still-life to more surrealistic depictions, which he favored later in life. Further External Info | ||
"We must be a part of all the misery which is coming. We have to surrender our heart and our nerves ... It's the only course of action which might give purpose to our superfluous and selfish existence (as artists) that we give people a picture of their fate."
Summary of Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity)
Eschewing the idealism and utopianism that marked the first decade of the 20th century and disillusioned by a World War that wreaked havoc on bodies and society, the artists associated with Neue Sachlichkeit, or New Objectivity as it is translated in English, presented an unsentimental realism to address contemporary culture. Disgusted with the corruption apparent throughout the Weimar Republic but also entranced by new freedoms, this diverse group of artists did not necessarily share a style but rather a commitment to expose the objective truth underlying contemporary ills. Employing caricature, satire, Neoclassicism, and even Surrealism, artists such as Max Beckmann, George Grosz, Otto Dix, and August Sander portrayed leaders, bureaucrats, bohemians, laborers, and themselves unflinchingly, each complicit in the society they inhabited. The artists highlighted the social and political turmoil of life emphasized through war-profiteers, beggars, and prostitutes. They explored the rise of the metropolis with its freedoms and sexual liberation, but noted the increasing alienation from nature and rural life.
While their version of realism was initially regarded by some art historians as retrograde, Neue Sachlichkeit's variants would go on to later influence Magic Realism and German art of the 1960s as well as contemporary photography as propagated by Bernd and Hilla Becher.
Key Ideas
Beginnings:
Before World War I, Expressionism, as practiced by the groups Der Blaue Reiter and Die Brücke, held sway in Germany. Inspired by the exoticism of non-Western art and the dynamism of modern, urban life, these artists abandoned the traditional conceptions of art and searched for a language that was highly intuitive and emotional. Artists such as Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Emile Nolde focused on the individual's inner world, highlighting the subjective perspective of seeing and understanding the world. If the idealism of Expressionism reigned before World War I, Dadaism, founded in 1916 in Zurich and spreading to Berlin shortly thereafter, embodied the nihilism and anti-art sentiments felt by many artists during the war. The fierce critique of war and bourgeois culture led to the rise of the photomontages of Hannah Hoch and Raoul Hausmann after the war.
Important Art and Artists of Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity) | |
 Artwork Images | The Night (1918-1919)Artist: Max Beckmann Artwork description & Analysis: In this terrifying scene, Beckmann depicts a chaotic and violent event. Intruders have taken a family hostage, overturned their belongings, and are torturing them. The father hangs from his neck while one of the men twists his arm. Beckmann implies that one of the invaders raped the mother, with her wrists bound and her legs splayed and backside exposed, and a blond-haired child reaches out as another man attempts to carry her out of the room. Oil on canvas - Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf, Germany |
 Artwork Images | Tingel-Tangel (1919)Artist: Rudolf Schlichter Artwork description & Analysis: The painting depicts two bare-chested ladies dancing on a stage, with classical musicians in full tuxedoes playing behind them. Men in suits and official uniforms casually observe the scene. Painted just after the war, Schlichter provides a glimpse into the popular musical cabarets, with their suggestive female performers, that were so popular at the time. Watercolor on paper - Private Collection |
 Artwork Images | Self-Portrait with a Cigarette (1923)Artist: Max Beckmann Artwork description & Analysis: One of some 80 portraits painted over his life, here Max Beckmann presents himself in a suit and tie, holding a cigarette, seated before an ochre-colored wall. Perhaps more than the other Neue Sachlichkeit artists, Beckmann probed himself and his inner life in numerous self-portraits. Although he is often known for his "expressionist" language, he rejected the term, the movement, and their artistic ideas altogether. His time as an army medic led to a nervous breakdown, and the misery he witnessed during the war was reflected in his painting style. As critic Edward Sorel explained, "The brutality that they endured or witnessed scarred their psyches and darkened their outlook forever." Oil on canvas - Museum of Modern Art, New York |
More Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity) Artwork and Analysis:
Content compiled and written by Sarah Frances Dias
Edited and published by The Art Story Contributors
" Movement Overview and Analysis". [Internet]. . TheArtStory.org
Content compiled and written by Sarah Frances Dias
Edited and published by The Art Story Contributors
Available from:
First published on 11 Jan 2018. Updated and modified regularly. 
[Accessed ]
