6: Dix and a Sunset Sky
Otto Dix
Randegg in the Snow with Ravens, 1935
Mixed media on pressed fiberboard, w70cm x h80cm (27.56" x 31.5")
In private collection
At some point I'm going to come back around on Dix and talk about why so much of his work is so (intentionally) ugly, but today just a quick note on warm vs. cool color use. Most winter paintings understandably tilt cool — even if that means using the warm versions of cool colors, or the cool versions of warm colors. (See the 'Referesher' pic above for an example of how that works — the overall dominant color there is blue, but to get the right feel of a snowy-but-sunny day the artist warmed up some of the blues [like adding some warm yellow to the blue of the sky, or red to the far-away blues in the background] and cooled down some of the purer warm colors [like adding a touch of blue to the yellow light on the trees and snow for a more greenish final look]).
In the above, we see Dix tilt the other way, towards a very decidedly warm red-and-brown-dominant picture with just a hint of cool tinge through the middle ground. It still gets at a wintery feel, but more in a psychological way than through appeal to our visual senses. That is, I can't recall many winter days looking like that (even if we assume this is depicting the sky of a red sunset, nature-based rather than purely imaginative), but the surreal, ominous colors, in combination with the equally-ominous stream of ravens, and the little cluster of houses set against stretching empty land behind, makes this feel dark and oppressive and lonely in a way that says 'winter' in a more primeval sense.