Weimar Art: Between Tradition and Avant-Garde
abstract
This study aims to analyse two art movements in Germany: Dada and New Objectivity, identifying their distinctive features in the context of the anti-modernist mood in the interwar period. A ‘call to order’, or return to tradition and classics, can even be found in some texts of the Berlin Dadaists. The aesthetic positions of New Objectivity representatives were also ambiguous. On the one hand, they shattered avant-garde foundations through an appeal to the national pictorial tradition. On the other hand, modernist means of expression can be traced in their works.
Keywords: Weimar art • Old masters • New Objectivity • Berlin Dada • Expressionism