The Night - Max Beckmann

A seminal Expressionist work by Max Beckmann, The Night depicts a scene of domestic intrusion and violence. Painted between 1918 and 1919, it reflects the social and political turmoil of post-war Germany through distorted figures and a compressed, claustrophobic composition.

Max Beckmann painted The Night between 1918 and 1919, following his service as a medical orderly during the First World War. This experience altered his artistic approach. He moved away from his earlier academic style toward a distorted and angular form of Expressionism. The painting depicts a scene of domestic violence. It is often interpreted as a response to the political instability and civil unrest in Germany during the post-war period. The composition is claustrophobic. Beckmann uses a tilted perspective and compressed space to create a sense of entrapment. Seven figures occupy a small, attic-like room. On the left, a man is being strangled by an intruder while another figure twists his arm. In the centre, a woman with her back to the viewer is bound to a wooden post. To the right, a man in a cap prepares to take a child away. The figures are lanky. They have sharp joints and pained expressions. Beckmann employed a palette of muted browns, greys, ochres. He added small areas of red and yellow. The lighting is harsh. It comes from multiple sources that do not clarify the space. This work is a primary example of the New Objectivity movement. Artists in this group moved away from the emotional abstraction of early Expressionism to document the harsh realities of contemporary life. The painting is currently held in the collection of the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen in Dusseldorf.