After the First World War, Dix becomes the enfant terrible of the German art scene, first in Dresden, then, after 1922, in Düsseldorf. Initially the painter treats prewar themes with Expressionist pathos; later, he uses Dadaist war cripples and bordello scenes to express his postwar experiences. In drawing, however, he practices a succinct depiction of reality and thus finds a way to "his" style. "The Expressionists do enough art. We want to see naked reality clearly, almost without art." (1965) By 1920/21, Dix had become the protagonist of a new kind of brutal realism with socially critical power and political explosiveness. Antibourgeois attitudes gave way to reality-based images of aggressive sharpness that critics of the time termed "Verism" (P. Westheim) and which were located in the "left wing" of the New Objectivity (Neue Sachlichkeit) (G. F. Hartlaub). With the "War"cycle of etchings in 1924, Dix reached the height of his early graphic Œuvre.