Self-Portrait with Naila as Circus Performers Holding Masks and Reclining on a Sea Monster c. 1923

Max Beckmann made this drawing, Self-Portrait with Naila as Circus Performers Holding Masks and Reclining on a Sea Monster, with pencil and some colored crayon, and what I love is the way the pencil has been used to render every area of the composition with hatching or cross-hatching. It gives the whole thing a kind of buzzing unity. Look at the lower face, the way Beckmann tilts it slightly, giving it a kind of quiet knowing. The face seems to be looking off to the side, lost in thought as the drama of the rest of the composition plays out. The drawing has an all-over unity that feels strangely contemporary and very personal. Beckmann’s work, especially in the twenties and thirties, can be compared to that of Otto Dix, another German artist preoccupied with similar subject matter. But where Dix is all acid and aggression, Beckmann is, well, just a little more human, a little bit melancholy, which is something I always appreciate.