Support Independent Arts Journalism As an independent publication, we rely on readers like you to fund our journalism and keep our reporting and criticism free and accessible to all. If you value our coverage and want to support more of it, consider becoming a member today. LOS ANGELES — Just over a century years ago, in 1912, Otto Dix painted “ Self-Portrait with Carnation .
” Two years later, the world that gave rise to this Renaissance-inspired image was gone. World War I had broken out and the Europe of Hans Baldung Grien and Hans Holbein seemed unrecognizable. Yet Dix, ever the Nietzschean, knew better.
Resentment and oppression had always been there, pressing their weight against the will for liberation. In 1914 they won out. That year marked an inexorable change in much of the world that still resonates today.
Every year thereafter was supposed to get better. The war was expected to end, but it didn’t — not for four years, and even then Dix, who served for the duration, was haunted by nightmares. Imagined Fronts: The Great War and Global Media , currently at LACMA, is a well-curated overview of art and popular media related to World War I, and a solid lesson in a war that gets short shrift in US education despite its foundational role in creating our modern world.
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