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Max Beckmann, Die
Nacht (1918/19)
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In the claustrophobic atmosphere of an overcrowded garret, Beckmann visualizes the menace threatening man in a world totally bereft of moral values. The onlooker's expectations of cosiness stirred up by the candles, the grammophone and the pet under the table are completely shattered by the inexplicable acts of violence perpetrated by the figures: One man is being strangled while a petit bourgeois wearing a bandage round his head, but otherwise impeccably dressed, assists in twisting his limbs, another sinister looking man with a cap drawn over his eyes holds a convulsed girl under his arm, and in the centre of the picture a half-naked woman with her bodice undone and her legs spread apart has been tied to the window-frame. The only form of communication existing between these otherwise unrelated figures is unmotivated aggression. As if anticipating Pinter's comedies of menace, the picture reveals modern man's existence as a state of perpetual uncertainty, of unmitigated dread of being intruded upon or exposed to terror. |
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