George Groesz, Metropolis, 1916-17

Metropolis, Georg Grosz ( 1893-1959 )

An Urban Landscape like Metropolis or Explosions almost seems to explode before the viewer's eyes: the city becomes a teeming inferno with leering figures rushing wildly from place to place. Bathed in a red light, Grosz's Berlin is the epitome of the " big city landscape " of second-generacion Expressionism.
Metropolis exemplifies the anarchy of post war Germany.
The scene is Friedrichstrasse, site of the Central Hotel, which Grosz had already depicted in lithographs: beggars, prostitutes, cigar-chomping profiteers, cripples, and convicts intimately glimpsed create a maelstrom of misery and depravity.
This dynamism of the city owes much to the rhytms of Italian Futurism.