‘ The match seller’, Otto Dix, 1920, Etching
Dix served as a non-commissioned officer in the German army for the entirety of the
war; joining in 1914 in the opening phases and only being decommissioned in September
1918. 5 Initially, he was captured by the nationalist fervour that marked the start of the First
World War, but during his service he became disillusioned by the horrors he would witness
both during and after the conflict. This feeling of repulsion that marked much of the Dada
movement would display itself best in his representation of veterans in the post-war period.
In this image, we are confronted by the central figure of a quadruple amputee,
presumably also blinded or otherwise visually impaired by the dark glasses he is wearing.
The only other humans present in the painting are the long legs of passersby, all moving in
5 Jeremy Fulmer, Biography <https://www.ottodix.org/biography/> [accessed 5 January 2024] (para. 4-7 of 15).
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