Image source: artvee.com
Introduction
Max Beckmann’s Gesichter Pl. 19, etched between 1914 and 1918, epitomizes the artist’s visceral confrontation with the traumas of the First World War. As part of his Gesichter (“Faces”) cycle, this work transcends mere portraiture, delving into the fractured psyches of its subjects through anguished line and haunting empty space. Rather than offering a comfortable likeness, Beckmann chooses to render his figures as raw, exposed fragments—two soldierly visages caught between what has been lost and what may lie ahead. In this analysis, we will explore the historical context of the piece, Beckmann’s technical mastery of etching and drypoint, the symbolic resonance of the dual portraits, and the work’s enduring power to convey struggles of identity and survival in an age of violence.
Historical Context: War and Disillusionment
When Beckmann first took up his etching needle for the Gesichter series in the shadow of 1914, he was still an instructor at the Weimar Academy, painting with the vigorous colorism of his earlier period. Yet the outbreak of hostilities shattered any illusions of progress or heroism. Drafted into the German army, Beckmann witnessed the brutality of trench warfare firsthand, experiences that left him physically debilitated and morally unsettled. Discharged on medical grounds, he returned to Berlin, where he confronted a society in disarray. The Gesichter prints, executed in the grip of this disillusionment, mark Beckmann’s decisive turn from lush oils to the stark intimacy of printmaking—a medium as unforgiving as the world he had encountered. In Pl. 19, the two faces become witnesses rather than mere individuals, their hollow eyes and taut flesh emblematic of a generation hollowed out by conflict.
The Etching Process and Beckmann’s Technique
Beckmann’s choice of etching and drypoint allowed him to manipulate line weight, texture, and tonal range with precision. For Gesichter Pl. 19, he began by coating a copper plate in wax ground, into which he incised the principal outlines of the faces. These etched lines provided the structural framework: the sharp plane of the jaw, the subtle arch of the brow, the hollow cheek of a man who has witnessed too much. Through acid bites of varying duration, Beckmann controlled the depth of line—longer bites yielding darker, more robust strokes. He then employed drypoint to introduce burr, scratching into the metal to create velvety shadows around the eyes and mouth. This interplay between etched detail and drypoint richness imbues the composition with a three‑dimensional quality, as though the faces might step free of the brittle frame. Finally, Beckmann wiped and inked the plate himself, sealing his personal imprint on each impression.
Composition and the Power of Duality
At first glance, Gesichter Pl. 19 appears deceptively simple: two heads occupy the horizontal plane of the print, one in frontal view, the other in profile. Yet the juxtaposition teems with psychological tension. The frontal face bears a blank stare, eyes wide and nostrils flared, as though momentarily stunned. Its pendulous lower lip and sagging jowls hint at exhaustion or resignation. By contrast, the profile face seems mid‑speech or mid‑breath, its lips parted, cheek muscles tensed. Cigarette stub or toothpick protrudes from its mouth, an ambivalent token of habit or rebellion. Together, they form a dyad of emotional extremes: passive shock and restless agitation. This duality encourages the viewer to move between perspectives, imagining inner monologues or unspoken exchanges. Beckmann’s simple doubling gesture thus becomes a narrative device, suggesting that no single viewpoint can contain the complexity of wartime inner life.
Psychological Portraiture and the “Fragment”
Unlike traditional portraiture, which strives for a coherent whole, Beckmann revels in fragmentation. The heads in Pl. 19 seem isolated from their bodies, cropped at the neck, as though fished from the wreckage of battle. There is no torso to anchor them, no hands to gesture emphasis. Instead, the empty background—a worn, textured plane of etched hatchings—becomes the void against which these faces fend for meaning. That void echoes the trenches’ mud and the ruined townscapes of the Western Front. Beckmann’s erasure of context underscores the survivors’ sense of dislocation: their identities unmoored, their humanity reduced to bare facial contours. This aesthetic of fragment invites viewers to contemplate not idealized likeness but the traumatized individual as a relic or testament.
The Role of Empty Space
Beckmann’s masterful use of negative space shapes the emotional tenor of Pl. 19. Around the heads, broad unetched expanses accentuate the isolation of the figures. Only a few pencil‑thin hatchings suggest an ambiguous environment—perhaps a distant wall, perhaps the sky’s distorted reflections. This deliberate sparseness forces attention onto the faces, but it also yawns open a chasm of emptiness. It is as if the mental landscape of these men has collapsed, leaving only echoing void. In this sense, the print acts as both portrait and psychological map, charting absences as keenly as presences. That Beckmann refrains from crowding the plate highlights his conviction that nothing—neither color nor spectacle—could adequately disguise the nakedness of war’s aftermath.
Symbolism of the Cigarette and Facial Marks
The profile visage’s protruding cigarette stub—or metallic toothpick—serves as a focal emblem. On one level, it evokes the cigarette’s battlefield ubiquity: a crutch for nerves, a fleeting comfort amid chaos. Yet its angular shape also recalls bayonets or sharpened stakes, blurring the line between wartime implements and personal habit. Meanwhile, the frontal face bears subtle scrawls around the eyes, as if gaunt shadows have etched themselves into the skin. These hatch marks insinuate sleeplessness, grief, or a visceral carving of memory. Beckmann’s symbolic use of minor details transforms the print into allegory: the cigarette as both solace and weapon, the scars as record of psychic rent.
Expressionist Resonance and Beckmann’s Divergence
While Beckmann’s etchings share Expressionism’s emotional intensity, he diverges in methodology and intent. He eschews the spontaneous swirl of paint or wild color in favor of disciplined line. Yet that discipline conceals explosive emotional force. The Gesichter plates belong to a unique interstice between controlled draftsmanship and ungovernable inner tumult. Beckmann’s figures are expressionist in their raw honesty but remain anchored to formal rigor. His art does not dissolve into pure emotion; rather, it channels emotion through a tightly woven web of etched and burr‑laden strokes. In Pl. 19, this tension between control and release achieves a haunting clarity.
Portraiture as Social Witness
Gesichter Pl. 19 responds to the war not merely as external event but as societal rupture. Portraits here become testimony—records of what the conflict did to human flesh and spirit. Beckmann does not shy away from ugliness or fatigue; instead, he confronts them frontally. In doing so, he honors the silent witnesses whose sacrifices might otherwise vanish from history. Each facial line carries the weight of communal suffering, each empty background suggests the erasure of entire towns and generations. Viewed in this light, Pl. 19 aligns with journalistic or documentary impulses—an aesthetic chronicle of violence’s toll.
Materiality and the Uncanny
The physical qualities of Pl. 19—its faint yellow of aged paper, the burr’s whispery softness, the gleam of etched metal lines—contribute to its uncanny effect. Early impressions, printed on thick cream laid paper, exude warmth even amid dark subject matter. Later states, printed on smoother wove paper, seem colder, harsher in tone. Scholars note how impressions vary, and how each nuance of plate wear alters the work’s psychological tenor. For contemporary viewers encountering an original print, the tactile sensation of burr‑laden lines and the smell of old paper reinforce the sense that these are artifacts of experience, bearing the scent of years and the memory of a violent epoch.
Beckmann’s Legacy and the Gesichter Series
Max Beckmann’s Gesichter prints represent a pivotal moment in early twentieth‑century art, bridging prewar experimentation and the emergence of New Objectivity. Their candid exploration of psychological trauma foreshadows later art movements that embrace subjectivity as valid subject matter. Beckmann’s insistence on facing ugliness head‑on influenced generations of artists who saw in his etchings a model for art as moral witness. Gesichter Pl. 19, with its dual visages and empty horizons, continues to resonate in exhibitions worldwide, reminding us that the aftermath of conflict extends far beyond the battlefield.
Conclusion
In Gesichter Pl. 19, Max Beckmann distilled the horrors and alienations of World War I into two arresting portraits hung in empty space. Through etching and drypoint, he achieved a powerful dialectic of line and void, precision and burr, presence and absence. The juxtaposed faces—one stunned, one agitated—speak to the fracturing of individual identity under relentless violence. The etching’s spare composition, symbolic motifs, and Expressionist intensity combine to make the work an enduring testament to art’s capacity for truth‑telling. More than a historical document, Pl. 19 stands as a universal cautionary tale: that in witnessing horror, we may yet preserve our shared humanity.