Self-Portrait 1911

Max Beckmann made this self-portrait in 1911, and it looks like he used charcoal, or maybe a greasy crayon—something smudgy that allowed him to build up shadows and light. Imagine him at work, looking in the mirror, trying to figure out how to describe himself. The scribbly lines give a sense of searching, of him trying to catch his own likeness, like trying to grasp a thought that keeps slipping away. The dark shadows around his face create this intense, almost haunted feel, don't they? Beckmann’s use of mark-making reminds me a bit of other artists like Kathe Kollwitz, who also used printmaking to express deep emotion. I feel like artists are always in dialogue with each other, reaching across time and space to find new ways of showing us what it means to be human. And in the end, it’s not about perfect representation, but about how a gesture can communicate something profound and true.