Max Beckmann - Die Nacht

1918-1919
Kunstsammlung Nordrhein - Westfalen

Oil on Canvas
55.5 x 70 cm

(click to enlarge)

Max Beckmann left a very remarkable standpoint in the first half of the 20th century. The experiences as a medical orderly in the First World War turned this naturalist into an outraged and pessimist storyteller, whose stage contaminated with freaky mimics, disturbing arrangements and quite intriguing perspective, reflected in a very peculiar way all the pressure and tension of an outbursting era.

In 1915 Beckmann wrote to his wife "For me, war is a miracle, though rather an uncomfortable one. It's fodder for my art.", after the terror in the fields, the artist had a breakdown and developed a very dark point of view. The anomie and the horrifying atmosphere of these first decades triggered one of the leading frames of expressionism: The Night.

The scenario is shocking: A woman just raped. A man strangled. A child soon to be molested. All the filthyness, injustice and banalization of life had entered home, everyone is enemy at the extremism of the war. Beckmann bravely pointed out the artistic purpose of the picture "give mankind a picture of their fate".

Indeed, when we look at the relation between our actions and the violence, ambition, radicalism and pointless war, we actually face how unconsciously we live, how easy it is to adjust and accept horror, and if we finally compare that to Die Nacht, it's not difficult to perceive that alienation is still there.