Max Beckmann Quotes about Art

All important things in art have always originated from the deepest feeling about the mystery of Being.

All important things in art have always originated from the deepest feeling about the mystery of Being.

Art, Inspiration, Feelings

"On my painting". Republished text of Beckmann's public speech during the exhibition 'Twentieth-Century German Art' in London, July 21, 1938.

My heart beats more for a raw, average vulgar art, which doesn't live between sleepy fairy-tale moods and poetry but rather concedes a direct entrance to the fearful, commonplace, splendid and the average grotesque banality in life.

Max Beckmann

Art, Average, Fairy Tale

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.

Max Beckmann

Art, Play, Torment

Max Beckmann, Barbara Copeland Buenger (1997). “Self-Portrait in Words: Collected Writings and Statements, 1903-1950”, p.306, University of Chicago Press

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

Max Beckmann

Art, Play, Creative

Max Beckmann (2013). “On My Painting - Max Beckmann”, p.8, Tate Enterprises Ltd

It is, of course, a luxury to create art and, on top of this, to insist on expressing one's own artistic opinion. Nothing is more luxurious than this. It is a game and a good game, at least for me; one of the few games which make life, difficult and depressing as it is sometimes, a little more interesting.

Max Beckmann

Depressing, Art, Luxury

Max Beckmann, Barbara Copeland Buenger (1997). “Self-Portrait in Words: Collected Writings and Statements, 1903-1950”, p.304, University of Chicago Press