Dostoyevsky I 1921

Max Beckmann created this portrait of Dostoyevsky using etching, which is a printmaking process. The image is built up from a network of etched lines of varying depth and thickness. I think about Beckmann, bent over the plate, using a needle to draw through the waxy ground. Each line, each scratch, is decisive, considered. Look at the way he uses cross-hatching to build up the shadows on Dostoyevsky's face, giving it a sense of depth and volume. You know, in the making, there's no undoing! The way he captures the intensity of Dostoyevsky’s gaze, it feels like he’s peering into your soul. Beckmann had such admiration for literary figures, especially those who plumbed the depths of human psychology like Dostoyevsky. You can sense this connection in the thoughtful way he renders the writer’s features, conveying a sense of inner turmoil and profound insight. It makes you wonder whether Beckmann saw something of himself in Dostoyevsky.