Objectivity.Establishingapredominantlymale iconographyoflabor,the realist
tradition continued throughout the 1930s, giving rise to both the Mexican mur-
alist tradition and the doctrine of socialist realism.With the promotion ofafas-
cist imaginary of the worker in German andItalian art,the modernist elements
eventuallydisappeared and,with them, the possibility foravery different aes-
theticsand politics of solidarity.
Fig..Franz Wilhelm Seiwert,Demonstration(), oil on canvas. With permission of Merrill
C. BermanCollection.
Seiwert’sinterest in the revolutionary proletariat,and in the process of be-
coming, found fullestarticulation in agroup of prints and paintingsthat
share the frontal figure constellations so distinctive of his work produced be-
tween 1920 and 1933.Infact,wecan useDemonstration(1925,oil on canvas)
to reconstruct how he translated the specificity of the 1925 MayDay scene pub-
lished inSozialistische Republikinto moreconceptual and painterlyterms (see
figure 11.2). In the painting,agroup of six workers dominates the frame; they
are led byacentral figure whose angular shape captures the internal strength
210 Chapter 11