Summary
After enduring a "great injury to his soul" during World War I, Max Beckmann channeled his experience of modern life into expressive images that haunt the viewer with their intensity of emotion and symbolism. Despite his early leanings toward academicism and Expressionism, he became one of the main artists associated with the Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity) movement and created scathing visual critiques of the tumultuous interwar period. In later works, Beckmann strove toward open-ended stories that juxtaposed scenes from reality, dreams, myths, and fables. Throughout his career, he firmly opposed the turn toward abstract art and maintained his desire to "get hold of the magic of reality and to transfer this reality into painting." Beckmann's prowess at subtly layering figures and signs, as well as color and shadow, allowed him to successfully translate his reality into mesmerizing narrative paintings throughout his prolific career.
Key Ideas
Most Important Art
Young Men by the Sea (1905)
Small Death Scene (1906)
Adam and Eve (1917)
Aside from the tonally symbolic schema of the painting, the jagged outlines, flat planes of color, and shallow space are the result of Beckmann's synthesis of a variety of sources. The brutal, twisted figures are indebted to medieval German artists like Matthias Grunewald and Hans Baldung Grien, who used similar depictions to represent pain and suffering. The appropriation of medieval styles and subject matter illustrates the Neue Sachlichkeit's drive to reinvigorate German tradition within the context of modernity. In contrast with the medieval influence, the organization of space on the canvas is clearly influenced by the compressed compositions of the Cubists, while the critical tone of the representation is tied to the social commentary of the Expressionists. Beckmann's incorporation of these varied movements resulted in the definition of a personal style and initiated the most successful period of his career. The resulting painting can be read as an allegory warning against the temptation of a reprise of the violence, cruelty, and destruction that plagued Germany during World War I. The dark outlines, disproportionate figures, and shallow space all serve to heighten this effect and later became hallmarks of Beckmann's mature style.
Self Portrait in Tuxedo (1927)
Departure (1932-1935)
The dimly lit right panel of the triptych portrays a woman bound to an upside-down man, searching in vain for a path out of her current plight, thwarted by a drummer in front of her and a sinister bellhop at her rear. In the left panel, Beckmann represented several figures in a torture chamber with their hands bound, forced to submit to unspeakable acts of violence. The outer panels convey Beckmann's vision of the contemporary violence and brutality inflicted by people on their fellow human beings. In contrast to the dark vision of humanity in the flanking images, the central panel portrays the possibility of salvation for all. Four adult figures and one child occupy a rough wooden boat floating in an azure sea. A crowned figure with his back turned, the fisher king, grasps a net of fish and confers a blessing on the scene, while an ominous hooded man at the oars holds a fish - both allude to "the mystery of the world." On the other side of the boat, a woman, the Queen, clutches a small child facing the viewer, while the man sitting next to her, the King, is largely obscured. Beckmann described the central family to a friend by stating, "The King and Queen have freed themselves... The Queen carries the greatest treasure - Freedom - as her child in her lap. Freedom is the one thing that matters - it is the departure, the new start." Beckmann traced an allegorical path through the darkness and suffering of daily life toward the light and freedom of redemption. He distilled the contemporary cultural climate of Europe into a transcendent message of hope, regardless of the era's tribulations. After this work, Beckmann completed nine more triptychs during the remainder of his career, all in a similarly jewel-toned palette and in a large scale suited to their grand, symbolic nature.