Max Ackermann and Otto Dix - The Höri as a refuge

Max Ackermann's painting depicts a view of his home in Horn on Lake Constance, combining landscape, architecture, and figurative representation in a harmonious composition. The scene is imbued with a gentle, almost meditative atmosphere. At the center is a lovingly tended garden, where a profusion of flowers blooms in intense colors. The plants seem to unfold almost rhythmically in space—a reference to Ackermann's preoccupation with dynamic compositional principles.

Several human figures can be seen among the flowers and near the house. They are not individualized in a portrait-like manner, but are depicted in a loose, almost sketch-like style. They reflect Ackermann's view of movement as an essential part of life – and thus also as a central element of his artistic conception.

Max Ackermann, who always sought the connection between spiritual abstraction and sensual experience in his work, understood movement in the great outdoors not only as physical activity, but also as an artistic principle. In his later work, he developed an “art of movement” based on inner rhythms, energetic lines, and color vibrations. In this painting, too, the forms are gently modulated, the lines are organic, and the color fields vibrate in a balanced tension.

The architecture of the house—restrained and nestled in greenery—forms a calming center in the composition, while Lake Constance in the background lends depth and breadth. The lake, slightly shrouded in mist, opens the scene to the horizon and underscores the contemplative dimension of the painting.

Blindstempel: Akademie der bildenden Künste DresdenAkademiedruck
Bemerkung: Es gibt Exemplare, die auf 10 nummeriert sind
Drucker: Ehrhardt
Verleger: Otto Dix

Otto Dix: “Seated Woman”, 1931

The drawing “Seated Woman”, created in 1931, is a striking example of Otto Dix’s turn toward an Old Master-inspired style of draftsmanship, which characterizes his work between 1928 and 1933. During this period, Dix gradually distanced himself from the precise, sharply contoured aesthetics of New Objectivity and sought out more expressive forms rooted in classical drawing traditions.

The depiction of a seated female figure not only recalls the traditional motif of the nude in art history but also conveys a psychological depth and a meditative stillness. Dix’s use of red chalk—a warm, reddish-brown medium—underscores this reference to historical technique. Used since the Renaissance for figure studies, red chalk enables subtle modeling and a soft, lifelike plasticity that is clearly evident in this drawing.

In “Seated Woman”, Dix largely abandons sharp contour lines in favor of finely nuanced tonal transitions. The surfaces breathe; the modeling is achieved through soft gradients, smudging, and flexible hatching. The figure appears introspective, restrained, and yet intensely present. This ambiguity resonates with the theme of melancholic inwardness that runs through many of Dix’s works from this period.

From an art historical perspective, the drawing represents a conscious return to “Old Master” values, reminiscent of the German Renaissance artists such as Dürer or Hans Baldung Grien. Yet Dix does not simply quote these traditions—he integrates them as part of a deliberate strategy of slowing down and intensifying his artistic focus. In the politically and artistically turbulent final years of the Weimar Republic, and in the face of the rise of National Socialism, this turn toward reduced, contemplative drawing may be seen as a reflection on humanity, vulnerability, and quietude.

“Seated Woman” thus stands as a representative work in Otto Dix’s artistic reorientation: a move away from the sharp, often provocative realism of the 1920s, toward a technically refined, introspective, and atmospherically rich approach to drawing.


© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2023