Art and Painting in Weimar Germany.
Art in Weimar Germany was very different to what it had been before the war. Increasingly, Weimar artists believed in using paintings to show everyday life and their opinions on the current culture and politics. A lot of the art commented on the society at the time. The new approach was given the name 'Neue Sachlichkeit', which means 'New objectivity' in English. It was particularly associated with painters such as George Grosz and Otto Dix.
George Grosz experienced first-hand what war was like after being a soldier in WWI. It was after observing the horror of this that he changed his art to focus on social critique. He often used people or figures in his art to represent larger groups, allowing him to show his critical opinion without his paintings straying far from 'normal' in that period of time.
Otto Dix was another artist who was very prominent within the 'Neue Sachlichkeit' approach to art following the war. Alike Grosz, he also fought in the German army in WWI. The experience left him traumatised, and he made a few paintings to represent this. He was very critical of the social side of Weimar Germany and his art often drew attention to bleaker, unmentioned things, such as prostitution, violence, old age and death.
When the Nazis rose to power, both artists were labelled as 'degenerate' artists. This meant art by them was 'un-German', Jewish or Communist in nature. George Grosz narrowly avoided this, as he moved to America shortly before to teach art, but Otto Dix, who at the time was teaching at an academy, lost his job and license to teach.