King and Demagogue (Original Title)Blatt 8 aus der Mappe „Day and Dream“ 1946

Max Beckmann made this drypoint etching, King and Demagogue, using stark black lines to create a scene full of symbolic weight. I can imagine him hunched over the plate, digging in with his needle, the pressure just so, creating those burrs of ink that give the lines their velvety darkness. It’s all about contrasts. The figures, a king and his cohort perhaps, are caught in a dance of power and vulnerability. The king seems burdened, his posture slumped. Beckmann’s mark-making is so alive, so full of doubt and searching. You can sense him wrestling with the image. The cross-hatching is nervous, urgent, building up shadows that feel psychologically charged. The way the lines thicken and thin, the way they almost, but don’t quite, meet – it’s like a visual metaphor for the instability of power, the fragility of human connection. Beckmann, like other artists, such as Picasso or Grosz, was really trying to make sense of the world through his art, responding to the turmoil of his time with work that’s both deeply personal and universally resonant. The print isn’t trying to give us answers. Instead, it invites us to question, to feel, and to make our own connections.