Max Beckmann and German Expressionism

Max Beckmann, a German expressionist artist who was one of the most insightful commentators on “man’s inhumanity to man” between the wars, sought the opening, the bridge he believed, that would enable him to access the invisible.  Leaving the “real world” behind in favor of the unconscious or subconscious realm, Beckmann sought imagination’s playground  in the hopes that he would communicate with his true transcendental inner being.  Part of his quest for the transcendental was fueled by Beckmann’s growing horror of Germany’s culture accelerating toward the precipice for a second time.  In his work, Beckmann was reacting to a German populace, led by nationalist politicians, that increasingly embraced values such as this statement uttered by Count Baudissin, director of the Folkwang Museum, in the 1930s:  “The most perfect form, the most sublime image to have been created of late in Germany does not come from an artist’s studio.  It is the steel helmet.”  What are your thoughts on Beckmann’s work within the context of the late 1920s and early 1930s Germany which was becoming nationalistic and militaristic once again?

Max Beckmann, Paris Society, 1931