A biography for Max Beckmannhasn’t been written yet.
“Space, and space again, is the infinite deity which surrounds us and in which we are ourselves contained.”
“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.”
“What I want to show in my work is the idea which hides itself behind so-called reality.”
“Painting is a very difficult thing. It absorbs the whole man, body and soul, thus have I passed blindly many things which belong to real and political life.”
“I believe that the reason why I love painting so much is that it forces one to be objective. There is nothing I hate more than sentimentality.”
“I am seeking for the bridge which leans from the visible to the invisible through reality.”
“It was so wonderful outside that even the wild senselessness of this enormous death, whose music I hear again and again, could not disturb me from my great enjoyment!”
“On my left the shooting had the sharp explosion of the infantry artillery, on my right could be heard the sporadic cannon shots thundering from the front, and up above the sky was clear and the sun bright.”
“One of my problems is to find the self.”
“I passed blindly many things which belong to real and political life.”
“Art is creative for the sake of realization, not for amusement... for transfiguration, not for the sake of play.”
“I hardly need to abstract things, for each object is unreal enough already, so unreal that I can only make it real by means of painting.”
“What are you? What am I? Those are the questions that constantly persecute and torment me and perhaps also play some part in my art.”
“There is nothing I hate more than sentimentality.”
“I went across the fields to avoid the straight highways, along the firing lines where people were shooting at a small wooded hill, which is now covered with wooden crosses and lines of graves instead of spring flowers.”
“Painting constantly appeared to me as the one and only possible achievement.”
“I believe the reason I love painting so much is that it forces one to be objective.”
“Height, width, and depth are the three phenomena which I must transfer into one plane to form the abstract surface of the picture, and thus to protect myself from the infinity of space.”
“I do not weep: I loathe tears, for they are a sign of slavery.”