Lust Murder I 1922

Otto Dix made this etching, Lust Murder I, and you can almost feel the scratch of the needle on the plate. You can see the quick, angry cross-hatching that Dix used to build up the dark tones. It feels like he’s wrestling with something here, not just describing, but really trying to get at the horror of the scene. I wonder what it was like to be Dix, staring into the abyss, turning that into art. The dogs are terrifying and surreal, and the horror of the woman’s body is etched into the surface of the plate. It is there in stark detail. This is classic Dix: unflinching, brutal, and deeply human. He reminds us that art isn’t always pretty, but it’s always real. Artists are constantly in conversation, challenging each other, pushing boundaries, and trying to make sense of the world. We don’t need to look for a fixed meaning because feeling is at the core of the expression.