3October 2007
I have never really liked Max Beckmann’s work. I found it unskilled, childish, and uninventive. For years I would simply walk past this painting, paying it no mind. Working at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, I have found myself paying attention to works of art that I would have normally ignored. Subsequently, I have changed my perspective on many works of art; Beckmann’s piece included.
Although I still do not like his poor use of composition, I find Beckmann’s use of color enjoyable. The layers of color, dark over light over dark, is typical of the expressionists and still innovative today. Philosophically this work is a personal catharses and an escape from World War II.
Max Beckmann
German, 1884-1950
“Blind Mans Buff”
1945, oil on canvas.
“I think only of objects: of a leg or an arm, of the wonderful sense of foreshortening, breaking through the plane, of the division of space, of the combination of straight lines in relation to curved ones.”
-Max Beckmann
Pay attention to the content in this painting…
…it can surprise you.