Of ‘Truths Impossible to Put in Words’ : Max Beckmann Contextualized

Dismissing attempts to characterize his paintings and graphic work as connected to stylistic movements or to historical events, Max Beckmann positioned himself above the earthly realm and claimed that he painted ‘truths impossible to put in words’. In contrast, this volume consists of essays that relate his work to the tangible circumstances of its production and reception. Unlike much earlier scholarship that has focused on stylistic analysis or on interpretations of the work’s ‘eternal truth’, these essays contextualize aspects of Beckmann’s early, middle, and late career by way of detailed reference to contemporary music, film, philosophy, theatre, history, sports, and exile. The anthology thus expands Beckmann scholarship, which only recently has begun to consider context in relation to his position as both a central and an outside figure in the history of modern art in the twentieth century.

Dismissing attempts to characterize his paintings and graphic work as connected to stylistic movements or to historical events, Max Beckmann positioned himself above the earthly realm and claimed that he painted ‘truths impossible to put in words’. In contrast, this volume consists of essays that relate his work to the tangible circumstances of its production and reception. Unlike much earlier scholarship that has focused on stylistic analysis or on interpretations of the work’s ‘eternal truth’, these essays contextualize aspects of Beckmann’s early, middle, and late career by way of detailed reference to contemporary music, film, philosophy, theatre, history, sports, and exile. The anthology thus expands Beckmann scholarship, which only recently has begun to consider context in relation to his position as both a central and an outside figure in the history of modern art in the twentieth century.