Shell Holes near Dontrien Illuminated by Flares, from War

Otto Dix mobilized a wide variety of etching techniques in this series. Here he used a subtle effect of white lines on a black inked plate to alert the viewer to his skill and creativity as an artist. Ironically, that very attention to “art for art’s sake” implied for Dix, through the fetishization of visual effects, a critique of the public’s unexamined embrace of the war. Turning the bombed surface of the battlefield into a visually compelling image quite literally aestheticizes the impact of the destructive capacity of modern warfare.