Crystal-clear landscapes and stark human images: Adolf Dietrich and Otto Dix united in an exhibition in Schaffhausen

Image left: Adolf Dietrich: «Yellow Dahlias in front of a Seascape», 1940. Image right: Otto Dix: «Sailor's Bride», 1921.

Adolf Dietrich and Otto Dix lived not far from each other for several years – the Swiss in Berlingen, Thurgau, the German in Hemmenhofen on the Untersee. The paradisiacal landscape of Lake Constance inspired both painters. Both also belonged to an art movement that became known as New Objectivity from 1920 onwards. They were established artists, and their works hung side by side in many exhibitions.

In some cases, they were supported by the same gallery owners and collectors. But did they know each other? Their circles and their lives had nothing in common. There is some evidence that they didn't get along.

Dietrich and Dix are now united in a joint exhibition at the Museum zu Allerheiligen Schaffhausen. It makes sense to show them together, not only because of the proximity of their places of residence. They painted the same sunsets over the lake and the magnificent spectacle of the breaking ice. However, the reasons why they were here are not comparable.

Dietrich was a local, born in Berlingen in 1877, and deeply familiar with the region. Until the end of his life, he lived in his parents' modest home, where he painted his pictures sitting at the table. He was self-taught. At his parents' request, he trained in a jersey factory and worked as a machine knitter. It wasn't until 1920 that Dietrich was gradually able to earn a living from selling his paintings.

Otto Dix, born in 1891, was an exile on Lake Constance. He came here in 1933, having been dismissed from his professorship at the Dresden Art Academy following the Nazi seizure of power. He was an artist who needed the hustle and bustle of the big city. He found his subjects in its streets and establishments: working-class children and prostitutes, factory owners and war veterans.

The scathing criticism of these paintings had brought him fame, as had his virtuoso play with techniques and styles. On Lake Constance, Dix was thrown back on himself. He came to terms with the "disgustingly beautiful" landscape and pursued his painting as a kind of emigration.

For many years, Adolf Dietrich had painted his small-format pictures primarily for himself. He had unsuccessfully sought exhibition opportunities at the art associations of Schaffhausen and Konstanz, as well as at the museums of Zurich and Winterthur. It wasn't until the Mannheim gallery owner Herbert Tannenbaum became aware of him quite by chance and visited him in Berlingen that Dietrich's situation changed.

Tannenbaum must have recognized something in this painting at the time, a quality that distinguished the self-taught artist and enabled him to be featured in major exhibitions. He distributed Dietrich's paintings throughout Germany. The contact between gallery owner and painter continued throughout his life, even after Tannenbaum emigrated to the USA.

What was it that distinguished the Swiss painter in the gallery owner's eyes? One must look at the paintings as originals to get a sense of what Tannenbaum saw. Dietrich paints as if he has to give everything its due. Even the smallest branch on a winter tree is important to him. Whether landscape or portrait – everything is worthy of inclusion in the space of his paintings.

Dietrich captures the things of his world in over a thousand works, reassuring himself of them, as if he had to take what he saw with him in order not to lose it. His painting is a form of appropriation of reality. In his pictures, fleeting things are present, even when they are gone.

Critics mostly remained stuck on the apparent naivety of Dietrich's painting, even after the artist had long been recognized: He simply couldn't do anything other than paint, they said. These are strangely relativizing judgments that reveal more about the critic's attitude than about the artist's inner motivations.

Despite his love for his subjects, Dietrich's gaze remains cool. He is not "intimate," as has often been claimed. He composes precisely – sometimes from his own photographs – and carefully considers all the elements of his paintings. The term "objective" is apt for Dietrich's art. Perhaps it was this truth of vision that fascinated the gallery owner Tannenbaum.

"I invented New Objectivity." Otto Dix had no lack of self-confidence. He studied painting professionally, not only at the Academy but also with the Old Masters. Dix explored the history of art from all over the world, drawing on their styles and motifs.

If you look more closely, you'll find something from almost every era, from Schongau to Cubism. He painted his best pictures when he could be drastic: the group of skat players with prosthetics and shot-up faces, the haggard worker in the shabby room. Dix needed the wounds of contemporary events to reach the heights of his art.

In Schaffhausen, Dix's war motifs are on display, as are some of his cityscapes. The landscapes of the Hemmenhofen émigrés are placed alongside Dietrich's paintings. However, it is less the Lake Constance motifs that provide insight into the painters' personalities than some of the portraits. Both painted their parents: Dietrich in 1905 in two hieratic frontal views against a dark background. Dix in 1921, his parents sitting together in their living room. Both painters came from simple but solid backgrounds.

Dix, whose portraits often turn into caricatures, paints his parents with dignity. Aged and haggard from a busy life, they sit facing the viewer. Their faces and hands are expressive, revealing two people marked by life. In Dietrich's frontal portraits, however, the parents appear stern and aloof, like two immovable authorities. Unlike Dix's parents, they did not support their son's artistic education.

Adolf Dietrich never married. After his mother's death, he lived with his father in a kind of community. His career as an artist only began after his father's death. Dietrich remained rooted in his parents' home, never leaving. The fact that his paintings were shown and sold in many exhibitions in Germany and Switzerland, and even traveled to Paris and London, changed nothing. Fundamentally, he was simply happy that, from a certain point on, he could only paint. He didn't need any kind of machinery; his paintings reveal that the world can be in Thurgau.

Dietrich and Dix have nothing in common, apart from some motifs from the Lake Constance landscape. The comparison in the exhibition is nevertheless fruitful, for each brings out the other's distinctiveness more clearly. Perhaps Dietrich's paintings wouldn't appear so crystal-clear if Dix's heroically turbulent landscapes weren't hung alongside them. The constants in the work of one reveal the other's erratic changes all the more clearly. Perhaps both would be surprised to be so close to one another here.

Otto Dix – Adolf Dietrich. Two Painters on Lake Constance. Museum zu Allerheiligen Schaffhausen, until August 17. Catalog CHF 38.–.