Martin Zeller The Dictator Analysis

Painted around 1920 by German expressionist Martin Zeller, The Orator captures the fleeting moment in which the titular speaker basks in the climax of his great and powerful message. While he stands just to the left of center, his body takes up the entire length of the picture and covers the span of the entire left side. With his arms and legs spread wide on a raised orange-brown platform, he throws back his head toward to sky to summon a great miracle, message, or magic. Or perhaps he himself is the miracle as the people around him flock to get a better view of his splendor. They each lunge at him with gusto in what appears to be a cramped room, paying to mind to the people standing beside him. Every man is for himself in this attempt to soak …show more content…
Standing atop a brown-orange platform that acts as a makeshift stage, the orator stands a food three feet above all the other people in the room. With his left foot forward and arms reaching the sky, the speaker might be in the beginning of a great and powerful bow to wrap up his glorious and awesome oration by basking in the glory of his message and the people’s admiration. However, his face doesn’t exhibit the exuberance of one who gloats about his own magnificence. It’s solemn with his eyes closed and the corners of his mouth pointed down in what almost looks like a frown were it not for his unfurrowed eyebrows. Therefore it is more plausible that the performer hopes to add extra drama into his oration by calling upon a higher being for blessings to bestow upon him and those standing at his feet in order to create the sensation of a great power either real or imagined. This is the height of his performance, and he knows it. With his limbs full extended and spread apart, he calls further attention to his self-importance in the scene by reminding everyone who sees him that he is someone deserving of attention. As a thin and lanky person, his position expands his size exponentially with his …show more content…
After the Treaty of Versailles named Germany as the sole cause and loser of the First World War, the country sank into a deep economic depression as it was forced to pay off immense reparations as payment for starting the war. Of course, this destroyed the economic stability of the people as it created rampant inflation that would only worsen in the decades following. The story of The Orator is thus clearly a story about a people devastated by a failing economy and national identity best seen in the pale and bony hands of the audience that hand limply from their reaching arms. They are the hands of a people in desperate need of good news that they hope the speaker can provide. While there is no clear light source in the painting, the light seems to be coming out from the speaker himself as he is bathed in light. On both sides of the canvas, those with their backs to the viewer are covered in shadow while those nearest to the orator and facing him, particularly from the front, have light streaked upon them. For light to be pointing left toward the speaker and right toward his audience, there must either be two light sources (which is unlikely in such a small, cramped space) or the light must be