Characters on Canvas

 In this post, I feature a portrait by German painter and printmaker, Otto Dix

Portrait of the Journalist Sylvia von Harden,

1926

mixed media on wood

Paris, Musée National d'Art Modern

Dix had met her on the street, and declared:

'I must paint you! I simply must! ... You are representative of an entire epoch!'
'So, you want to paint my lacklustre eyes, my ornate ears, my long nose, my thin lips; you want to paint my long hands, my short legs, my big feet—things which can only scare people off and delight no-one?'
'You have brilliantly characterized yourself, and all that will lead to a portrait representative of an epoch concerned not with the outward beauty of a woman but rather with her psychological condition.'^[4]