Max Beckmann: The Landscapes

The landscape paintings of Max Beckmann (1884-1950) are increasingly understood as fundamental to his achievement, equivalent in stature to his portraits but operating as the ground for a very different side of Beckmann's sensibility. His depictions of urban landscapes, lakeside scenes and country lanes are without the implication of allegory found in his portraiture; while they do often serve as records of places visited, they also frequently cite works from art history, and occasionally insert the artist into their narratives via personal effects positioned in the foreground, subtly orienting the scene around a human presence. Some of Beckmann's most haunting paintings fall within this genre, such as his "Moon Landscape" of 1925, in which elongated tubular rolls of cloud overhang the city nocturne, embellishing its mood with abstract unease. With more than 100 color plates, this volume shows Beckmann to have been among modernism's foremost exponents of landscape painting.