Prager Straße

Prager Staße or the Prague Street, 1920,  Otto Dix one of the great arts to come out of WW1. Dix, who was a first world war veteran, celebrated the idea of the war as a force - bravery that made the conflict and lack of bigotedness in it. This was in an age when wars were generally seen as an exercise of strength and will. However, over the next few years, upon witnessing the untold suffering and indignity imposed by the war, Dix began to transform his views and started painting scenes to capture its horror along with the social and political turmoil building within the post world war Germany.

Prague Street ( 1920)  depicts a scene at the leading fashion street in Dresden, Germany. Before a glass showroom of a shop displaying mannequins,and artificial limbs, like in other Dix plantings, two grotesque and crippled veterans are shown begging. A woman dressed in apparent expensive pink outfit along with a dog walks past without glancing at them. A stray dog loiters in the corner.One of the boards, perhaps belonging to the veteran, displays a sign Juden Raus! ( Jews Out)

The painting though not exceptional in terms of technique or innovation of the age ( 20s) , it almost amounts to a photograph of political precision.