drawing, lithograph, print
portrait
drawing
ink drawing
lithograph
german-expressionism
expressionism
cityscape
Dimensions 28 1/8 x 18 9/16 in. (71.44 x 47.15 cm) (image)32 7/16 x 24 5/8 in. (82.39 x 62.55 cm) (sheet)
Max Beckmann drew "The Way Home" with black chalk, and it feels like the lines are actively searching. Look at the hat on the right, sitting above this intense profile, and then the face on the left – what's going on with that bulging eye? You can see the artist feeling his way, line by line, figuring it out as he goes, making the image come alive. I'm sure Beckmann was trying to nail something down but probably found himself chasing a ghost. I bet he worked feverishly, compelled to get something down quickly but also stopping, questioning, adjusting. You can feel this process, this back and forth, in the final image. These characters, caught in the shadows, remind me of Otto Dix and George Grosz, artists trying to make sense of a disorienting time. There's something raw and unresolved here, that makes the drawing so compelling.
Comments
The Way Home is the opening scene in Beckmann's acclaimed graphic cycle Die Holle (Hell), a dark and disturbing essay on the collapse of German society in the aftermath of the First World War (1914-18). Set in postwar Berlin, the allegorical scene features Beckmann as a man on his way home who suddenly encounters a horribly disfigured veteran under the light of a street lamp. Bearing the scars of war, the once proud soldier symbolizes the fate of Germany itself, broken and defeated. In the foreground, a menacing black dog warns of the dangers that lie ahead. Beckmann further enhances the tension of the scene by crowding his figures into a shallow pictorial space. Above all, The Way Home is a powerful denouncement of war.
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