War Produces Barren Zones

Otto Dix’s impressive charcoal sketch Gräber zwischen Kirchenruinen – ‘Graves among Church Ruins’ – dates from the First World War, in which he served as a soldier. Here, he works through his own experience in Bautzen where he was in training for the front lines.

The sketch’s scene of destruction is dominated by the ruins of the 500-year-old St. Nicholas Church. In the 1600s, the site was the scene of bitter defensive actions during the Thirty Years War. The church roof was removed to install an artillery battery in the open dome vaults.

The prominent crooked transverse arch, with its open view of the exterior wall with its lancet windows, frames the composition. Gravestones and crosses, signs of the transience of life, seem to be scattered at random between the ruins. The church is derelict, neglected. Here, you would seek protection – whether physical or spiritual – in vain. Even the graveyard appears devastated and chaotic, hardly a place of peace.

Dix’s sketch reveals his profound insecurity in the face of his imminent deployment at the front. The ruin itself is an anti-war memorial which Dix captures on paper in expressive, nervous lines, like a portent of things to come.