Кваппи в розовом.

Among the numerous personalities of the time photographed by Hugo Erfurth was Mathilde von Kaulbach, known to her friends and family as Quappi. This attractive young woman of strong features looks fixedly out at the camera, dressed in a modern flowered suit with a large bead necklace, in fashionable 1920s style. Quappi, daughther of the German painter August von Kaulbach, was the second wife of Max Beckmann and his faithful companion until his death.

Beckmann painted her portrait various times, representing her as the model of a new type of modern, determined and self confident woman who also frequently appears in the art of Beckmann's contemporaries at this time. As Quappi herself related, many of her portraits were painted to show off a particular piece of clothing: Quappi in blue on a Boat (1926 1950), Quappi with a white fur Coat (1937), Quappi in blue and grey (1944), Quappi in a green Blouse (1946). Beckmann's obsessive interest in the details of the visible world was motivated, he explained, by his desire to "capture the magic of reality and transform it into paint." Beckmann's painting was alone within the panorama of German art of the time. The painter was not part of any of the Expressionists groups, and although he had a certain affinity with New Objectivity, he was never convinced by its rather rigid formulae. Beckmann wanted to represent the world as a human tragedy and his pictorial language could become very bitter, although by the time of painting this portrait of Quappi the tone had softened.

Quappi in a Pink Sweater was painted in two stages, according to the artist's catalogue raisonnй (Gцpel, 1976, no. 404). In the first stage, painted in Frankfurt in 1932, the portrait was practically finished: but two years later, during the couple's stay in Berlin, the painter made some changes and, as can easily be seen, changed the date below the signature. We known from Stephan Lackner, the painting's first owner and a good friend of Beckmann, quoted by Peter Vergo (1992), that in the first version Quappi had a broader smile. Between the time of painting the first stage and the second Beckmann's life underwent a huge change. The Nazis had forced him to abandon his post of professor at the Frankfurt Academy and the couple lived in semi hiding in Berlin, attempting to pass unnoticed. Quappi is painted frontally in a blue armchair with her legs crossed, dressed in a striking pink wool jersey and a matching hat which she had just bought in Frankfurt. Her pose is elegant and sensuous, with a cigarette in her hand and that indefinable and totally modern air of superiority which on occasions has meant that the painting has been incorrectly titled The American.

Beckmann painted it with a rapid brushtroke, as if trying to capture a moment's inspiration. He was more interested in setting out the basic lines of the composition than in meticulously representing the details, and sketches the outlines in his characteristic thick lines of black paint, later applying the various layers of colour. Beckmann's painting at this time showed a certain French influence as a result of his numerous trips to Paris. The flat and schematic decoration of the background and his way of fusing it with the image of Quappi recall Matisse.

Black plays a major role in Beckmann's compositions. It not only delineates the outlines but is also used for large areas such as the vertical black strip in the present painting, which, with its acute verticality accentuates that of the figure, while its intense blackness draws the viewer's gaze into ambiguous and unknown depths.

источник: http://www.museothyssen.org

Автор: Paloma Alarcy