Max Beckmann Quotes
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What is important to me in my work is the identity that is hidden behind so-called reality. I search for a bridge from the given present tot the invisible, rather as a famous cabalist once said, 'If you wish to grasp the invisible, penetrate as deeply as possible into the visible'.
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What I want to show in my work is the idea which hides itself behind so-called reality.
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I have never, God or whatever knows, prostrated myself to be famous, but I would meander through all the sewers of the world, through all degradation and humiliations, in order to paint. I have to do this. Until the last drop every vision that exists in my being must be purged; then it will be a pleasure for me to be rid of this damned torture
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Afternoon with Q. Quappi, his second wife on foot, looking for butter and coals – in vain.
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We're continually poring over plans, and the decision is difficult, but it's definitely coming soon. The idea with Barr is not bad and might convince me to take your advice, if B. really does get involved.
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I am seeking for the bridge which leans from the visible to the invisible through reality.
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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.
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Space, and space again, is the infinite deity which surrounds us and in which we are ourselves contained.
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'Departure' also the title of a famous triptych painting of Max Beckmann, yes departure from the illusion of life toward the essential things that wait behind appearance.. .We must insist that Departure is not bound to a political trend, but is symbolic for all times.
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Learn by heart the forms to be found in nature, so that you can use them like the notes in a musical composition. That is what these forms are for. Nature is a marvelous chaos, and it is our job and our duty to bring order into that chaos and – to perfect it.
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And the evening of the big Vanity Fair arrived.. . Perre Rathbone and innumerable people received me in enormous halls. The reporter shot pictures and Mrs. Beckmann Quappi, his wife grinned – - o-la-La.. ..The whole story is a monumental caprice of my situation in Germany before the Nazi's.
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The laws of art are eternal and don't change at all, as the moral laws don't change in human beings. arguing with Franz Marc who demanded in 'Der Blaue Reiter' circa 1912 a new modern art, in relation to its own - changing - time.
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I believe the reason I love painting so much is that it forces one to be objective.
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To me the most important thing in a picture is roundness captured in height and breadth. Roundness in the plane, depth in the feeling of the plane.
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One of my problems is to find the self.
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Put the picture away or, preferably, send it back to me, dear Valentin. If people cannot understand it is based on their inner engagement with these matters, then there is no point in showing the thing at all.
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Well - not quite yet - green police the Germans still driving around with machine guns, etc. Nevertheless big peace party with warning by Eisenhower. - Walked around in the city Amsterdam, much drunkenness..
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I do not weep: I loathe tears, for they are a sign of slavery.
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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.
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It is, of course, a luxury to create art and, on top of this, to insist on expressing one's own artistic opinion. Nothing is more luxurious than this. It is a game and a good game, at least for me; one of the few games which make life, difficult and depressing as it is sometimes, a little more interesting.