Ragged Claws Network » Max Beckmann http://www.raggedclaws.com/home "This day's experience, set in order, none of it left ragged or lying about, all of it gathered in like treasure and finished with, set aside." --Alice Munroe, "What is Remembered" Sun, 05 Feb 2012 12:46:25 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 Look Here: Max Beckmann’s “Self-Portrait with Saxophone” http://www.raggedclaws.com/home/2008/08/03/look-here-max-beckmanns-self-portrait-with-saxophone/ http://www.raggedclaws.com/home/2008/08/03/look-here-max-beckmanns-self-portrait-with-saxophone/#comments Sun, 03 Aug 2008 14:23:33 +0000 RC http://www.raggedclaws.com/home/?p=33 [...]]]> Self-Portrait with Saxophone is not only my favourite of Max Beckmann’s many self-portraits but also one of my favourite self-portrait paintings of all time. Beckmann’s painting technique, which in his later works can sometimes be a bit messy and offhanded, is beautifully controlled and economical here. The quilted (silk?) robe, which in real life would be soft but sort of slick to the touch, reminds me also of the tough protective skin of a pineapple or a pangolin, though here the underbelly, so to speak, is open and unprotected, with the casual posture, meaty hands, steady gaze, and set jaw of the artist projecting boundless confidence and creative power such that even the ordinarily rigid metallic musical instrument seems to bend and twist in conformity with the artist’s pose and grip rather than vice versa.

Max Beckman's Self-Portrait with Saxophone

ABOVE: Max Beckmann, Self-Portrait with Saxophone (1930), oil on canvas, 55 1/8 x 27 3/8 in., Kunsthalle, Bremen.

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