(View from the top of Le Centre Pompidou)
Picasso was our point of interest in our main
course discussion (May 26, 2013). After studying and critically analyzing a few of his works, our
class was then asked to walk the halls of the Pompidou and seek out a work dating before the 1960’s.
She was enticing, yet eerily grotesque in
appearance. I passed her by thinking there was another work I would have
greater interest in. However, after circling the halls, there was a notion sitting in the back of my head telling me that I HAD to go back and look at her again. She deserved a second
glance. Her name, Sylvia von Harden. As a journalist and poet in Germany, she
wrote for many newspapers.
A German painter by the name of Otto Dix is responsible
for the two works I studied at the Pompidou today. The first being Portrait de
la journaliste Sylvia von Harden, 1926 – (English - Portrait of the journalist
Sylvia von Harden, 1926) and the other across from her on a diagonal in the same
space was Souvenirs de la galerie des glaces a Bruxelles, 1920 - (English - Memories
of the Hall of Mirrors in Brussels, 1920) 
The enticement of Sylvia started with her gaze along
with my first impression of her appearance. Sylvia looked like a personality,
yet she is depicted in such an unattractive light. Understanding the “New Objectivity”
and that it encompassed the attitude of public life in Weimar Germany was
important. The "New Objectivity" was during a time
where the artists rejected any romantic idealism, a time of violence, sex, prostitution and filth physically and mentally. Otto Dix is well-known for
his crude and realistic depictions of the grotesque/brutal elements of the World
War One.
(Memories of the Hall of Mirrors in Brussels, 1920)
Memories of the Hall of Mirrors in Brussels, 1920 - Literally Reflected this unattractive mentality and agressive nature of the time. The officer depicted in red, could stand for him being of devilish nature. The woman is exposed in this hall of mirrors multiple times in unflattering poses and profiles. The essence of "flith" mentally is exuded in this work. The colors play off well with Portrait of the journalist Sylvia von Harden, 1926. The curation of the entire room, was well composed with an underlying theme of sexual exposure and crude depictions of the figure for the time.
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