Word: grosz
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Last week it was possible to give only a preliminary introduction to the paintings of George Grosz which are being shown in the Dunster House exhibit of contemporary watercolors and lithographs. By making use of a specific example, a painting entitled "The Way Of All Flesh," perhaps a clearer and more concrete expression of the artist's method can be presented...
This watercolor is perhaps the best of his works included in the exhibit. Grosz shows, by means of florid, fleshy color, the essential similarity existing between a man and the side of raw meat which he is preparing to cut. Placed on a table behind which this butcher-like individual is standing, are plates and bowls which contain ground meats, salamis, and other foods representing the products for which the carcass of the slaughtered animal is utilized. In the lower left corner of the painting, there is a potted plant, the pale green leaves of which serve as a restful...
Paul Gauguin once wrote, "All this must be; and after all, it's of no consequence. The earth still turns round; everyone defecates; only Zola bothers about it." Now the name of George Grosz might perhaps be substituted for that of Zola in the light of many of Grosz's paintings which are being shown in the current Dunster House exhibit of contemporary watercolors and lithographs...
...absurd to criticize Grosz on the score of techniue, for he is a polished craftsman. In most instances his supposedly crude manipulation of line and what may appear to be a sloppy method of organization, in reality, are masterly examples of precise adaptation of style to subject matter. And it is equally absurd to criticize the Germanborn American on the basis of obscenity or vulgarity. Obscenity and vulgarity, in art at any rate, imply a certain amount of conscious effort on the part of the artist to be either obscene or vulgar; and indications of such a motive seem...
There is, however, another side to be taken. Grosz is primarily a caricaturist, and his unrelenting attacks upon society and its institutions can be partly attributed to a sincere desire to bring to people's minds the notion that all is not well. His bitter realization that the World War had nothing to do with spiritual purification made him turn against those phases of society which seemed to him to be contributing factors toward causing war. Hence Grosz's early work consists of a condemnation of the money-grabbing, cafe-inhabiting industrial magnate, and the puppet-like member...