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Max Beckmann's Mystical Pageant

... the action was so forlorn and ghostly that the precision of the dècor came as a kind of relief: the maimed and dislocated arms and legs formed a visually agreeable pattern, distracting the mind from the torture that they represented.

... night: the demons of darkness, wearing peak caps with pipes stuck between their teeth, go about their grisly task with matter-of-fact indifference. They are free to concentrate on the work of torture: their victim has no means of escaping from the confined space. The actors in the drama are isolated in conditions of experimental purity. There is no hint of dawn, no external light to bring a sense of liberation. The stage is feebly lit by candles and smoky petroleum lamps, yet every corner of the room is almost painfully clear to view. the colours glow like

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stained glass or the plumage of exotic birds, but their brilliant display has no redeeming effect on the action: the martyrs in cathedral windows are unaware that the blood they shed coagulates into precious rubies. Beckmann's torturers go to work with closed eyes.

Stephen Lackner 1938 p 39,43 Beckmann- Marlborough

12-20-82