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:
- Carla Schulz-Hoffmann,
Judith C. Weiss, Max Beckmann: retrospective (Munich; Prestel-Verlag;
1984)
- Incredible Art
Department, Color Symbolism and Culture,
http://www.incredibleart.org/lessons/middle/color2.htm
- Norbert Wolf,
Expressionism (Koln, London; Taschen; 2004)
- Reinhard Spieler, Max
Beckmann 1884-1950 : the path to myth (Köln; Taschen; 2002)
- Wendy Beckett, Max
Beckmann and the self (Munich; New York : Prestel; 1997)
[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
Mandy Chiu:
ReplyDelete1) 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.
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 :)
ReplyDeleteYou mistakenly say it is impressionist near the beginning of your essay; probably a typo?
ReplyDelete