.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Like many Expressionist artists, Dix was drawn to the theme of the circus and the fairground because the people that worked there were outsiders who lived a life free from the constraints of modern society. The gaudy but glamorous world of the circus held a particular fascination for Dix because these performers, somewhat akin to the gladiators of ancient Rome, often risked their lives every time they went into the ring. It was this daring and dangerous aspect of circus life that Friedrich Nietzsche had used allegorically in Also Sprach Zarathustrat and for Dix, the war veteran and disciple of Nietzsche, it was also this feature of the circus that held particular appeal. For him, circus performers were a model of the way everyone should live.
Like his prostitutes, war-cripples and sailors, circus performers were a regular feature of Dix's art in the early 1920s. In 1922 he produced a series of etchings on the theme entitled Zirkus and throughout 1923 he painted several watercolours on the subject. Zirkusszene is one of these. The scene portrays a red-haired woman who resembles "Lilli Queen of the Air" from his Zirkus cycle. Dressed in silver and a top hat, she rides a white horse that is leaping over the fallen body of a clown. Dix seems to have been particularly enamoured with circus riders at this time as it is these that feature most often in his paintings of the circus.
With its flowing lines and dramatic washes of bright colour, Zirkusszene brilliantly captures the unique combination of sawdust and gaudy glamour that is the circus. In a move that may owe much to the collaged works of his Dada period, Dix has given the work an added sense of glitz by using silver foil stuck onto the paper as a means of rendering the rider's shiny costume. With the playful addition of the clown whose fake eyes have popped out of his head, a large circus ball and a strange creature who is painted above the dedication, this work strikingly evokes the dynamic mixture of danger, humour and human spectacle that constitutes the life of the circus.
Like his prostitutes, war-cripples and sailors, circus performers were a regular feature of Dix's art in the early 1920s. In 1922 he produced a series of etchings on the theme entitled Zirkus and throughout 1923 he painted several watercolours on the subject. Zirkusszene is one of these. The scene portrays a red-haired woman who resembles "Lilli Queen of the Air" from his Zirkus cycle. Dressed in silver and a top hat, she rides a white horse that is leaping over the fallen body of a clown. Dix seems to have been particularly enamoured with circus riders at this time as it is these that feature most often in his paintings of the circus.
With its flowing lines and dramatic washes of bright colour, Zirkusszene brilliantly captures the unique combination of sawdust and gaudy glamour that is the circus. In a move that may owe much to the collaged works of his Dada period, Dix has given the work an added sense of glitz by using silver foil stuck onto the paper as a means of rendering the rider's shiny costume. With the playful addition of the clown whose fake eyes have popped out of his head, a large circus ball and a strange creature who is painted above the dedication, this work strikingly evokes the dynamic mixture of danger, humour and human spectacle that constitutes the life of the circus.