ISSN 2411-0795
ISSN 2411-0795
Keywords: New Objectivity, art of the Weimar Republic, German art of the 20th century, item world, stillife
Koroleva A.Yu. Ominous Things of the Century. The World of Things in the Art of New Objectivity. // Theory and History of Art. 2024. N 1/2, p.227–237
The article deals with new objectivity and the item world as viewed by artists. The reader is shown semiotic properties and role of things in the painting of the Weimar Republic created by the artists, whose belonging to new objectivity does speak for itself about the attitude towards the image of things and the interpretation of the physic world. The article consistently examines portraits and stilllifes by O. Dix, G. Gross, G. Scholz, M. Beckmann, K. Schad, A. Kanold and others. That is, paintings in which an inanimate object of the visible world is used as a means of realistic depiction of reality, an attribute or symbolic element, and also as a quotation that reveals the meaning of the image through an appeal to traditional images of the art of old masters. In the course of examining these painting the author identifies several basic principles of the attitude towards things throughout the history of its existence and their transformation in the works of the interwar era. In conclusion the author notes that after the revolutionary changes in depicting the visible world, perfected by avant-garde art, the new objectivity, returning things to their material essence, and regards this process to be its own new meanings, only emphasizing the metaphysical nature of a human's relationship with reality.