The Smoker (Self-Portrait) 1916

This is Max Beckmann's self-portrait, "The Smoker," and it's made with etching. I can only imagine Beckmann hunched over a metal plate, using a fine needle to scratch this image into being. The density of lines that create the shadows, I mean, the sheer number of them, is remarkable. The face almost seems to emerge out of a dark, smudgy void. The eyes, especially, feel intense, like they're peering right through you, confronting something heavy. You know, as a fellow artist, I feel a kinship with Beckmann. Maybe he was trying to figure out his place in the world or make sense of it all. This intense gaze can be seen in the work of other artists of the time, like Otto Dix or George Grosz. But this is all speculation. Maybe he was just trying to capture a likeness, and, in that process, he found something much deeper.