männliche Bildnisstudie (Male Portrait Study) [p. 31] 1927

Max Beckmann made this male portrait study with graphite on paper. You can see his intuitive process at work in the shifting lines, the pentimenti around the mouth, that slightly worried gaze. It feels like Beckmann is searching for a likeness, not just on the surface but something deeper. The drawing is full of a restless energy – a kind of emotional Cubism, perhaps? I think of other portraitists like Alice Neel, say, in the way that likeness emerges from an almost brutal simplification. There’s this really beautiful economy to the mark-making. The few lines that define the shirt collar, for instance, are so simple, but they hold so much feeling. Like so much art, it feels less like representation, more like a strange, almost alchemical process. Artists are always in conversation with one another, even across time, working through their shared questions, and inspiring each other to see the world anew.