Taken from a sketchbook compiled during the artist’s service in the German field artillery during the First World War, this drawing depicts a devastated landscape with burgeoning flowers beneath a rising sun. The formal composition - a sequence of fragmented and interlocking planes - demonstrates the influence of Cubism in this representation of destruction and future hopes for renewal and new life.
The experience of war became a dominant motif in Dix’s work until the 1930s.
Inscriptions / Translations: Inscriptions, sale stamps &c: signed in black chalk [fragment], I.r.: DI; inscribed in pencil, l. r. : [?]; inscribed in pencil, l. l.: Z16/74 700
Notes: Exhibited: 'Expressionism in Germany', Bolton Museum and Gallery, Bolton, UK, 14 August 1999 - 06 October 1999; 'John Murphy: And Things Throw Light on Things', Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, UK, 17 November 2004 - 23 January 2005; 'Barber goes North: Treasure from the Barber Institute', Abbot Hall Art Gallery, Kendal, UK, 15 October 2010 - 15 December 2010; 'Age of Expressionism', Slade School of Art, London, UK, 08 February 2011 - 25 March 2011
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