Max Beckmann

Space, and space again, is the infinite deity which surrounds us and in which we are ourselves contained.

I think only of objects: of a leg or an arm, of the wonderful sense of foreshortening, breaking through the plane, of the division of space, of the combination of straight lines in relation to curved ones.

Height, width, and depth are the three phenomena which I must transfer into one plane to form the abstract surface of the picture, and thus to protect myself from the infinity of space.

What are you? What am I? Those are the questions that constantly persecute and torment me and perhaps also play some part in my art.

There is nothing I hate more than sentimentality.

I believe that the reason why I love painting so much is that it forces one to be objective. There is nothing I hate more than sentimentality.

I believe the reason I love painting so much is that it forces one to be objective.

Painting is a very difficult thing. It absorbs the whole man, body and soul, thus have I passed blindly many things which belong to real and political life.

I passed blindly many things which belong to real and political life.

It was so wonderful outside that even the wild senselessness of this enormous death, whose music I hear again and again, could not disturb me from my great enjoyment!

Art is creative for the sake of realization, not for amusement... for transfiguration, not for the sake of play.

What I want to show in my work is the idea which hides itself behind so-called reality.