| Self-Portrait with Red Scarf | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Artist | Max Beckmann |
| Year | 1917 |
| Medium | Oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 80 cm× 60 cm(31 in× 24 in) |
| Location | Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, Stuttgart |
Self-Portrait with Red Scarf is an oil on canvas painting by Max Beckmann, executed in 1917. It is housed at the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart. [1] [2]
The physician soldier Max Beckmann, who had joined the German Army at World War I enthusiastically, experienced the horrors of warfare in the Western Front and Flanders, suffering a serious nervous collapse in July 1915. His view of the war had changed drastically and this is reflected in the paintings he did afterwards. In his own words, the war impressions made him want to "enclose the unspeakable things of life in... sharp, crystalline surfaces and lines". [1]
This self-portrait was executed in 1917 and reflects his negative impressions of the still ongoing war. His left hand shows what appears to be the suggestion of a wound. The head of the artist is located exactly at the intersection of the cross that can be seen through the window. The symbol of the cross can be seen as suggesting the artist as a martyr, while the red scarf also seems to represent his rebellion against the circumstances. He said at this time: "Humility before God is over. My religion (...) is a challenge against God, in my paintings I rebuke God for everything he did wrong." [1]
The painting was acquired by the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart in 1924, but was confiscated by the Nazi regimen in 1937, during their purge of so-called Degenerate art. It returned to the museum's collection in 1948.
Wilhelm Heinrich Otto Dix was a German painter and printmaker, noted for his ruthless and harshly realistic depictions of German society during the Weimar Republic and the brutality of war. Along with George Grosz and Max Beckmann, he is widely considered one of the most important artists of the Neue Sachlichkeit.
Degenerate art was a term adopted in the 1920s by the Nazi Party in Germany to describe modern art. During the dictatorship of Adolf Hitler, German modernist art, including many works of internationally renowned artists, was removed from state-owned museums and banned in Nazi Germany on the grounds that such art was an "insult to German feeling", un-German, Freemasonic, Jewish, or Communist in nature. Those identified as degenerate artists were subjected to sanctions that included being dismissed from teaching positions, being forbidden to exhibit or to sell their art, and in some cases being forbidden to produce art.
Max Carl Friedrich Beckmann was a German painter, draftsman, printmaker, sculptor, and writer. Although he is classified as an Expressionist artist, he rejected both the term and the movement. In the 1920s, he was associated with the New Objectivity, an outgrowth of Expressionism that opposed its introverted emotionalism. Even when dealing with light subject matter like circus performers, Beckmann often had an undercurrent of moodiness or unease in his works. By the 1930s, his work became more explicit in its horrifying imagery and distorted forms with combination of brutal realism and social criticism, coinciding with the rise of nazism in Germany.
Oskar Kokoschka was an Austrian artist, poet, playwright, and teacher best known for his intense expressionistic portraits and landscapes, as well as his theories on vision that influenced the Viennese Expressionist movement.
Max Liebermann was a German painter and printmaker, and one of the leading proponents of Impressionism in Germany and continental Europe. In addition to his activity as an artist, he also assembled an important collection of French Impressionist works.
The New Objectivity was a movement in German art that arose during the 1920s as a reaction against expressionism. The term was coined by Gustav Friedrich Hartlaub, the director of the Kunsthalle in Mannheim, who used it as the title of an art exhibition staged in 1925 to showcase artists who were working in a post-expressionist spirit. As these artists—who included Max Beckmann, Otto Dix, George Grosz, Christian Schad, Rudolf Schlichter and Jeanne Mammen—rejected the self-involvement and romantic longings of the expressionists, Weimar intellectuals in general made a call to arms for public collaboration, engagement, and rejection of romantic idealism.
The portraits of Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) include self-portraits, portraits of him by other artists, and photographs—one of which is dubious—of the Dutch artist. Van Gogh's dozens of self-portraits were an important part of his œuvre as a painter. Most probably, van Gogh's self-portraits are depicting the face as it appeared in the mirror he used to reproduce his face, i.e. his right side in the image is in reality the left side of his face.
The Staatsgalerie Stuttgart is an art museum in Stuttgart, Germany, it opened in 1843. In 1984, the opening of the Neue Staatsgalerie designed by James Stirling transformed the once provincial gallery into one of Europe's leading museums.
Boris Mikhaylovich Kustodiev was a Russian and later Soviet painter and stage designer.
A self-portrait is a portrait of an artist made by themselves. Although self-portraits have been made since the earliest times, it is not until the Early Renaissance in the mid-15th century that artists can be frequently identified depicting themselves as either the main subject, or as important characters in their work. With better and cheaper mirrors, and the advent of the panel portrait, many painters, sculptors and printmakers tried some form of self-portraiture. Portrait of a Man in a Turban by Jan van Eyck of 1433 may well be the earliest known panel self-portrait. He painted a separate portrait of his wife, and he belonged to the social group that had begun to commission portraits, already more common among wealthy Netherlanders than south of the Alps. The genre is venerable, but not until the Renaissance, with increased wealth and interest in the individual as a subject, did it become truly popular.
Self-Portrait(in French: Autoportrait) is the title of a self-portrait painted by the artist Jacques-Louis David in 1794 while in imprisoned at the Hôtel des Fermes for having supported the Robespierreans. It was his third and last self-portrait. He gave the work to his former student Jean-Baptiste Isabey. It entered the collections of the Louvre in 1852.
The Grey Passion is a series of paintings by Hans Holbein the Elder (1465-1524). Executed between 1494 and 1500, it comprises twelve panels illustrating the Passion of Christ; Holbein's monochrome palette is almost entirely grey. The paintings were purchased by the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, the Stuttgart State Art Gallery in Germany. The State Art Gallery acquired the altarpiece in 2003 for 12 million euros. The restoration of the artworks lasted three years and cost 450 thousand euros.
Karl Walther was a painter of the German Post-Impressionist school, and an exponent of plein air painting. His works include portraits, still lifes, cityscapes and landscape paintings.
Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery is an oil-on-canvas expressionist painting by German artist Max Beckmann, executed in 1917. The painting is in the collection of the Saint Louis Art Museum.
Quappi in Pink Jumper is an oil-on-canvas painting by German artist Max Beckmann, executed between 1932 and 1934. The painting is in the collections of the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid.
Self-Portrait in Tuxedo is an oil-on-canvas painting executed in 1927 by the German artist Max Beckmann. It now hangs in the Busch-Reisinger Museum of the Harvard University Art Museum in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Portrait of Mink with Violet Shawl is an oil-on-canvas portrait by German painter Max Beckmann. It depicts his first wife, the opera singer Minna Beckmann-Tube, and was executed in 1910. It is held in the collection of the Saint Louis Art Museum.
Descent from the Cross is an oil-on-canvas painting by German artist Max Beckmann, executed in 1917. It his held at the Museum of Modern Art, in New York.
Poppy Field is an 1890 painting by the Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh, painted around a month before his death during his stay in Auvers-sur-Oise, France. It has been described as "a composition that verges on the abstract" and shows marked difference from a 1888 painting of the same subject that now is in the Van Gogh Museum, in Amsterdam. Spending many years in Germany, the painting now hangs in the Kunstmuseum, in The Hague.
The Self Portrait Yellow-Pink by the German artist Max Beckmann was painted in 1943 in the Netherlands. In December 2022, it was sold by the auctioneer Grisebach for more than €20 million, making it the most expensive painting sold in Germany to date.
