Description: "Art serves understanding, not entertainment," reads one of Max Beckmann's dictums. Beckmann's oeuvre, widely acknowledged to be some of the most significant German art of the twentieth century, contains a wealth of existential and contemporary historical convictions and questions. This representative selection of some 60 figurative paintings done between 1917 and the artist's death in 1950 unfolds the entire panorama of his career, from violent works reflecting the shock of war to pieces from his later years in New York, from the Cubism and Expressionism of his youth to the Symbolism of his later age. The Dream of Life sheds new light on the development of Beckmann's techniques, ideas and central themes: cabaret, music, the world of the theater, dreams and reality, sensual settings and the role of the female muse, as well as his unusual use of romantic visual motifs in landscapes and urban contexts. The authors focus on conceptual aspects of Beckmann's work which have heretofore been neglected.
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About the Author
Max Beckmannwas born in Leipzig in 1884 to a family of farmers. He began his formal studies in 1900 at the Weimar Art Academy and moved to Paris soon after with his new wife. Drafted into World War I, he was deemed unfit to serve in the Second, and spent the war years in Germany, outlawed by Hitler from exhibiting his "degenerate" paintings. After the war, he came to America, taking up the post of Painter-in-Residence at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. In the late 1940s he moved to Manhattan, where he died of a heart attack en route to see his work in a show at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on December 27, 1950.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Beckmann /Klee,
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This review is from: Max Beckmann: Dream of Life (Hardcover)
This is a very elegant book.first rate reproductions in color. The text type is easy on the eyes. This is a catalogue for an exhibition of Beckman in the new Klee museum in Berne Suisse.The locals were somewhat aghast at Beckmann coming to the Klee museum. The curators had no trouble seeing similarities in the two artists work. Both were fans of theater. Beckmann wrote some plays himself. He was interested in Shakespeare ,as well as the circus.The comparison/contrast of Klee-Beckmann is the first chapter of the book.Other chapters are about his interest in music. His love of the carnival and circus. The chronology in the back of the book goes into many details of the artist's career. He sought beautiful ,talented wealthy women to advance socially. After he married Quappi he was accepted into advanced social circles in Frankfurt.I have several books on Beckmann and one a book of his landscapes ,a catalogue of the show at the Forum gallery that I saw in Vienna has work that isn't in any other book. Beckmann's "A Dream Of Life" has a few landscapes that are new to me as well.This book is well worth the Amazon price.It isn't so big that you can't read it while in bed.So, many art books might look good on a cocktail table but , when you want to read it you need to go to a library table.Another feature I liked is the addition of Beckmann's reading list...with commentary about the books by Tilman Osterwold.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A new insight on a great artist,
By Claude Reich (Florianopolis, Brazil and Paris, France) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Max Beckmann: Dream of Life (Hardcover)
This book is the catalogue for an exhibition held at the Zentrum Klee in Bern, Switzerland, in 2006. The idea of the exhibition, as pointed out in the beginning of the book, was to confront Beckmann's art to Klee's (the museum's Klee holdings are the largest in the world).This idea is not present here, since the catalogue is entirely centered on Beckmann, leaving Klee out.
It is a good survey of Beckmann's art, divided in several themes (Beckmann and music, Beckmann and the circus, Beckmann and women, Beckmann and nature...)and enables the reader to view some rarely seen aspects of the artist's oeuvre (I, for one, did not know he had painted still lives), as well as some of his celebrated self-portraits. One shortcoming, though: the quality of the illustrations could have been better.
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