The expressionist attitude and stylistic features of Otto Dix's portrait paintings

Many elements such as war, political values, self-expression becoming prominent played a role in the development of the Expressionist art movement, which left a significant impact on the 20th century with many works produced in different art disciplines. Expressionism movement lived its golden age in Germany. In Germany where the devastating effects of the war were felt the most, the disappointment of the German people who had been brought up with the dream of the Great Germany deeply affected Otto Dix, who personally fought in the war. Differences in terms of artistic style in the pre-war and post-war works of the painter Otto Dix, who witnessed plenty of traumatic scenes at the front, draw attention. These stylistic differences can also be observed in Dix's portrait works, which occupied most of his artistic life. Particularly in the self-portrait works that Dix produced before he experienced the war, and in the self- portraits he worked on during the war and in the three years after the war, distorted forms on the face and body stand out. In addition, use of colors, use of brush, attitudes such as disintegration and separation from the whole or depiction of the visible in a sarcastic composition with all its reality are seen in the portraits in general. Otto Dix is also one of the founders of the "New Objectivity", which is a product of the expressionist thinking. It is seen that Dix, who used the satiric and critical style of the new objectivity movement in the portraits of soldiers, worked with a more romantic style in some portrait works such as the portraits of children and women. Such artistic style variety of the artist emphasizes his expressionist attitude as well. In this study, the portraits of Otto Dix which he produced starting from his childhood until his demise were determined, categorized and 5 portraits from each category were analyzed. As a result of these analyses, it was determined that Otto Dix's war experiences, his interest in different movements, his desire to move away from the usual, and his expression of the reality with all its starkness show different artistic style characteristics in his paintings.