Monday, January 19, 2015

Expressionism: Sabrina Ng talks on Max Beckmann's The Night, {1918-19}.




Title: The Night

Artist: Max Beckmann

Year: 1918-19

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 133x154cm

 
‘The Night’ is an oil painting by Max Beckmann, a German artist, and was finished from 1918 to 1919.[1] The work’s dimension is 133x154cm. It shows a miserable scene in the time of the Great War, and is undeniably the painter’s reflection on people’s life and destiny. The work’s contents, analysis of why it belongs to impressionism, and my own opinions about this work would be the three major parts in this essay.

 
In this work, the background is a room, and seven characters were clearly depicted. There are two types of people, including victims and perpetrators, or bourgeois and the proletariat. On the left, the father, with his hair showing his social status, is being tortured by two people. He is hanged by one of them, and the another one is twisting his arm. The father closes his eyes tightly and screams painfully. Expression of the perpetrator behind the father is invisible, yet the appearance of pipe-smoker is obvious to spectators. In contrast with the bourgeois hair, he gets only a bandage around his head, inferring that he may be a victim of war. On the right, there are two parts, including the mother and her daughter. The woman’s cloth is torn, and the back of her body becomes uncovered. Meanwhile, her legs widely open and hands are fettered. These indicate she may probably be assaulted. The weeping daughter, who is caught by the third perpetrator, is about to be thrown out of the window. And the man with a cap looks at another direction. Things on the ground are in a terrible mess, like candles, a broken dish, a gramophone and a howling dog. It is as if ‘the theatre of war has moved from the battlefield to the living room.’ [2]The last person, the woman on the back of left hand side, becomes an observer and takes no interventions in this dispute.[3]

 
Historical context plays a key role to the ideas of ‘The Night’. In the book called ‘Max Beckmann, Retrospective’ written by Carla Schulz-Hoffmann and Judith C. Weiss, it tells us ‘“The Night” reflects the disquieting situation of the period after the (Great) War.’[4] Having experienced the revolution in November of 1918, the communist rebellion in 1919, and life filled with wars, violence and poverty, Beckmann’s contents of paintings were affected in a large extent.[5] In ‘The Night’, there is no fantasy but misery. The painting is an expression of Beckmann’s distorted feelings towards these miserable things, as well as his idea that destiny is the most important thing.[6]

 
Before investigating deeply into the work’s meaning, it would be better to have the analysis on its style, as well as on how it expresses the painter’s emotions. There are several reasons for why this work belongs to expressionism according to its following features.

 
First, there is distortion of characters, which is also a feature for expressionism. In ‘The Night’, those depicted characters are not realistic that Beckmann had instilled his style into the painting. For example, the head and eyes of the pipe-smoker are round as balls, showing the fierceness of the pipe-smoker. Proportion of the hanged man is also unrealistic. His left leg and left arm are much longer than those of the right. This exaggeration reinforces the pain brought about by twisting the arm and leg. The woman’s departed legs are also unnatural that they buckle outwards. Through distortion, radical emotion is expressed in a more effective way.

 
Second, apart from characters, space in the painting is unrealistic as well. Many things are presented in the painting, and they are closely connected and confined in a tiny room. This leads to a lack of space, which builds up a tense, suffocating atmosphere. A sense of claustrophobia is therefore created. In ‘The Night’, the depth of space is inadequate. Distance between the background and characters is limited, like that between the perpetrator and the windows. This makes the scene less realistic, on the other hand, accentuates the emotion of anxiety.

 
Third, the whole work is in unrealistic color tone, since color in expressionism is a tool for expressing, not for depicting reality. The color of ‘The Night’ is in relatively grey and brown tone. Background, including tablecloth, the window and a table, is mainly in these colors. In ‘The Night’, skin color of those people is not as brilliant as that of real people. For instance, skin of the perpetrator of the right side is chiefly in grey. The face of the daughter is also gloomy. In view of the father’s face, it is red in cheeks, which reflects he is tightly hanged. Red is the highlight of the painting, and every character was arranged attentively in terms of colors. Each of them have spotlight, like the ribbon for hanging, the pair of boots of the woman, dress of the daughter, clothes of the woman behind, and the gramophone. Red can help capture spectators’ attention on those characters and their action, including father’s being hanged, mother’s legs being separated, daughter’s being caught. It also creates a sense of violence and tension.[7] The relatively outstanding colors of clothes from the victims expose that they are of higher class than the perpetrators because they are well-dressed.

 
Light and darkness is clearly defined, but there is a lack of smooth texture because some colors do not go naturally. There is a contrast between light and darkness, but transition between them is not prominent. Take realist painter Courbet’s ‘Portrait of PJ Proudhon’ as a comparison so that the idea would be clearer. In Courbet’s painting, colors go naturally so that the human depicted becomes vivid. For instance, for the head of Proudhon, Courbet painted with numerous layers of colors, like dark brown, brown, skin color, pink, white, black, buff and so on, as if it is real. Each color follows another color according to light and darkness, like the darker side of the head is in deep brown and the lighter side is in buff and even white. In his painting, light is more strengthened than in ‘The Night’. On the contrary, since ‘The Night’ does not aim at presenting reality, light and darkness is also clearly defined but not the focus. Considering the head of the pipe-smoker, layers of colors are relatively fewer, and it is not as smooth as the head of Proudhon. Even blue appears on his head, which is unrealistic. However, in expressionist painting, reality is not the goal. Beckmann used these cold yet unrealistic colors as an expression of his pessimism.[8]


Fourth, lines of the painting are extremely strong. The painting is devoid of softness due partly to its tough lines. These demonstrate passion and energy of the painter, since each of them is dynamic. For instance, lines of the hanged man’s arms and legs are almost straight. Things formed by lines, especially like windows, a tablecloth, and even ankles, are in sharp-angled. These lines are all in black, thus everything is of black contours.[9] The hanged man’s left leg and left arm are especially in thick black lines so that the focus would be easily on these parts. Black lines are so obvious that help forming sharp and linear shapes. In the painting, softness is reduced as curved lines are limited, and lines are all in black. This toughness and sharpness strengthens Beckmann’s agitation towards the dispute.

 
The final yet the most important feature is that Beckmann used unrealistic means to achieve his views towards reality. The painting is aimed at painter’s self-expression, which is also related to misery he confronted at that war time.

 
In ‘The Night’, there are only dreadful and brutal things, which are kinds of reflection on reality at that difficult time. Beckmann has said that ‘we must participate in the entire misery that is about to come.’[10] It means people should live in their own destiny[11]or reality, but not in fantasy, and we need to be faced with misery, which is a part of human’s life. To strengthen this idea, Beckmann also made the identity of the depicted people unclear. In the art work, perpetrators and victims are obviously defined. Still, when spectators investigate deeply on the it, they may find that those perpetrators deserve sympathy since they get hurt by those so-called ‘victims’, and therefore victims deserve distain. Perpetrators are not necessarily perpetrators, and so are the victims. Like the bandaged man in the painting, he could be both a victim and a perpetrator. As Beckmann said, ‘there is no way to comprehend the distribution of roles among perpetrators and victims’ because it is life.[12] Both types of people are potential perpetrators and victims. Like in reality, people’s personalities are various and complicated that kindness and evilness may be characters for the same person.
 

From Beckmann’s point of view, war is a great tragedy, however, has to be encountered directly. Through this tragedy, Beckmann realized the reality that right and wrong is hardly clarified. ‘The Night’ represents what the painter learnt and felt from a series of misfortunes with unrealistic yet expressionist features.

 
‘The Night’ gives me a sense of tension due to its extremely melancholy scene. At first glance, I thought everything in the painting is in chaos. There is a lack of obvious focal point. However, what interests me is the powerful emotion of the painting. Emotions like anger, sorrow, fear and pain could all be felt through looking into it. Although the painting is still, it is as if I could hear the screaming and crying of the depicted people. Paintings from other styles, like Realism, Neo-classicism, Surrealism, do not express such vigorous emotion. Beckmann’s style is so prominent that even though his paintings are in complicated composition, the ultimate goal, that is to express his emotion, is successful. In ‘The Night’, despite its unclear depiction about characters’ roles, it is apparent that the painter would like us to feel his pain from human’s dispute. Beckmann also took different perspective in ‘The Night’. Rather than just illustrating the battlefield of the Great War, Beckmann chose a room to be the painting’s background, which makes the whole work outstanding.

 

Questions:

1.      Even though colors in ‘The Night’ do affect the impression given to the spectators, colors are not applied as strongly as those of other paintings from some typical expressionist painters, like Franz Marc, Edvard Munch, Emil Nolde, etc. These painters utilized emotive bright colors in their paintings. However, why did Beckmann mainly adopt cold colors in ‘The Night’?

2.      Do you think the scene depicted in ‘The Night’ is a real scene?


Reference List:
  1. Carla Schulz-Hoffmann, Judith C. Weiss, Max Beckmann: retrospective (Munich; Prestel-Verlag; 1984)
  2. Incredible Art Department, Color Symbolism and Culture, http://www.incredibleart.org/lessons/middle/color2.htm
  3. Norbert Wolf, Expressionism (Koln, London; Taschen; 2004)
  4. Reinhard Spieler, Max Beckmann 1884-1950 : the path to myth (Köln; Taschen; 2002)
  5. Wendy Beckett, Max Beckmann and the self (Munich; New York : Prestel; 1997)



[1] Norbert Wolf, Expressionism, P.30
[2] Reinhard Spieler, Max Beckmann, P.36
[3] Wendy Beckett, Max Beckmann and the self; Reinhard Spieler, Max Beckmann
[4] Carla Schulz-Hoffmann, Judith C. Weiss, Max Beckmann: retrospective, P.205
[5] Carla Schulz-Hoffmann, Judith C. Weiss, Max Beckmann: retrospective, P.204-205
[6] Norbert Wolf, Expressionism, P.30
[7] Incredible Art Department, Color Symbolism and Culture, http://www.incredibleart.org/lessons/middle/color2.htm
[8] Incredible Art Department, Color Symbolism and Culture, http://www.incredibleart.org/lessons/middle/color2.htm
[9] Norbert Wolf, Expressionism, P.30
[10] Carla Schulz-Hoffmann, Judith C. Weiss, Max Beckmann: retrospective, P.205
[11] Carla Schulz-Hoffmann, Judith C. Weiss, Max Beckmann: retrospective, P.205
[12] Carla Schulz-Hoffmann, Judith C. Weiss, Max Beckmann: retrospective, P.205
 

3 comments:

  1. Mandy Chiu:
    1) Sabrina analyzed why the painting of Max Beckmann belongs to expressionism in an organized way. She used her own words to express the ideas. Her explanation was clear and easy to follow.
    2) All ideas were well organized into the paragraphs. Her essay include an introduction part but the conclusion part was not really clear. Maybe she can answer the question that she rose in the last paragraph.

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  2. Cadmus: Points are explained in thoughtful detail. I suggest to have an introduction of your essay so people would more easily know about what you are doing (it is still good to have mention the background of the picture at the beginning). you may consider using some quuotations as well in order to credit the reference you use and balancing the context of your points a bit. Overall it's pretty well written essay, try to improve more to strive for an A :)

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  3. You mistakenly say it is impressionist near the beginning of your essay; probably a typo?

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