Description of the picture:
Businessman Max Roesberg – Otto Dicks. 1922. Oil on canvas. 94×63.5
An artist who worked in different directions, from expressionism to dadaism, Otto Dix (1891-1969) appears in this picture as a representative of the movement, called “New Materiality”: it reflected the mood that swept people in the times of trouble in Germany after the defeat in the first world war.
In the characters of Dix, and he painted businessmen, lawyers, dealers in paintings, poets and prostitutes – a lot of funny and sad things, like in this businessman. His lapidary figure should seem to give the impression of something reliable, but the man’s look is insinuating, and the hand holding the document is uncertain. On the table in front Roesberg, whose activities, apparently, are not filled with special meaning, are household items that look like trinkets here. On the back, on the wall, the artist placed a watch, a symbol of the passing time and the frailty of being, as well as a calendar reminiscent of the cycle of life, which is empty if it does not have activities elevating the soul. The pure, pure colors of this work create the impression of a vacuum in which a person exists."