Category: Serious Content / German Modernism / New Objectivity
Reading Time: 3 Min
The art of Max Beckmann (1884–1950) is not a comfort; it is a mirror. After the horrors of World War I, where he served as a medic, the optimistic phase of German art collapsed. The vibrant colour palette of Expressionism gave way to an icy, razor-sharp precision known as New Objectivity (Neue Sachlichkeit).
Beckmann was its sharpest exponent. He painted the Weimar Republic not through political caricature (like George Grosz) but as an existential chamber drama. His canvases are crowded, the figures compressed into flat, sharp planes, creating a sensation of claustrophobia and psychological entrapment.
The Mask of the Ego
His work “Self-Portrait in Tuxedo” (1927) is iconic. It presents Beckmann not as a bohemian but as a detached, elegant observer wearing a mask of severity. The artist becomes a witness to the moral decay hidden beneath the thin layer of social refinement.
Beckmann’s compositions often employ mythological or allegorical motifs to frame collective trauma in universal metaphors. He dissects the bourgeois class, their decadence, and their solitude.
Degenerate and Banished
Beckmann’s uncompromising vision of reality made him a natural enemy of rising Nazism. In 1937, the Nazis branded him “degenerate” (entartet) and removed over 500 of his works from German museums. On the very day the “Degenerate Art” exhibition opened in Munich, Beckmann fled into exile—first to the Netherlands, then to the USA.
He remained true to his style throughout his life, refusing to paint political propaganda. Beckmann was a free spirit who prioritized existential truth over aesthetic comfort. His flight underscores the eternal lesson: true art cannot survive in a tyrannical system.
Key Works:
- Self-Portrait in Tuxedo (1927)
- The Night (1918–1919)
- Paris Society (1931)
- Departure (Triptych, 1932–1933)
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