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BACK
TO EXPRESSIONISTS
Pillars
of Society
George
Grosz
Oil on Canvas 1926
George
Grosz was an amazing painter, illustrator, and caricaturist
who combined his artistic talents with an uncompromising
radicalism. Grosz detested the bourgeoisie of Germany,
and continually attacked and mocked them with his
caustic pen drawings. With exacting skill Grosz documented
1920's Germany and the rise of fascism, until he was
forced into exile by the Hitler regime.
Grosz's
painting at left, Stutzen der Gesellschaft
(Pillars of Society), is a deeply sarcastic portrait
of the German elites who
supported fascism. Pictured front and center is a
Nazi holding a beer mug and a sword, behind this figure
sit two members of the bourgeoisie, one holding a
blood stained palm leaf and the other's head opened
to expose a steaming pile of excrement. A pompous
pro-Nazi priest stands in the background... blessing
the murderous actions of the army. By
the time Grosz had painted this work in 1926, he had
already created many vitriolic denunciations of the
ruling class.
He
had participated in the early Dada movement,
founded along
with John Heartfield the
satirical magazine Die Pleite (Gone Bust),
contributed illustrations to numerous left-wing publications,
and like many other artists... joined the just formed
German Communist Party (KDP).
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Grosz
was on a trip to the United States when the Nazis
came to power in 1933. The artist received word
that the fascists had come looking for him at
his apartment and at his studio. Grosz would not
return to Germany until 1954. He died in Berlin
in 1959. In
1921, Grosz offered this advice to artists; "Come
out of your rooms, even if you find it an effort,
pull down your individual barriers, let yourselves
be caught up by the ideas of working people and
help them in the struggle against a corrupt society."
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