The artist, Max Beckmann, described his work "Departure" as depicting "life, all sorts of physical and spiritual pains." (92K JPEG 640x400 pix)The elaborate philosophical plot of Max Beckmann's "Departure," recently arrived in St Petersburg on loan from the New York Museum of Modern Art, will be a shock to the local public.
Art lovers, fresh from the quiet and pleasant contemplation of Henry Matisse's "Tea," which arrived at the Hermitage Museum two weeks ago on loan from the Los Angeles County Art Museum, will find the new painting a great contrast.
Many will be unaware even of the existence of Germany's Max Beckmann.
But Hermitage Museum director Mikhail Piotrovsky said he considered Beckmann's "Departure" one of the most outstanding paintings of the 20th century. "It is one of the main masterpieces of the New York museum," he said. "And Beckmann is one of the biggest artists of our time."
Beckmann embarked on the three-panelled work in Frankfurt in May 1932. "Departure" was finished in December 1933 in Berlin, but it was not shown to the public until 1938 (in New York), after Beckmann had emigrated from Germany.
On exiting the country, to protect the painting -- and himself if it were interpreted unfavorably -- from Nazi officials, Beckmann stuck misleading labels on the reverse side of the paintings -- "Hamlet", "Tempest" and "Macbeth".
While physically three separate paintings, the triptych is intended as a single, indivisible work. Dreadful, cruel left and right nightmares flank a serene mythological scene in the center.
There are many interpretations of the painting. Lily von Schnitzler, an acquaintance of Beckmann, who saw the work in 1937, later quoted the painter as telling her that "it is life, all sorts of physical and spiritual pains."
Most interpretations cite the left hand panel as a dungeon of sadistic tortures. Two victims stand against a series of columns. One is gagged, bound and whitewashed, with raised bleeding stumps. Another, immersed in a barrel of water, has his hands tied behind his back. A third victim, a woman, lies with her head against a huge ball, suggesting that she is to be beheaded by the raised weapon of the fourth figure, the executioner.
In this left-hand panel Beckmann shows life as part of a constant chain of human cruelty to other human beings.
The right-hand picture depicts a bound woman, with a man tied, upside-down, to her body.
Von Schnitzler said that speaking of this right-hand panel, Beckmann told her, "It is you, those who want to find your paths in the darkness, attempting to enlighten your way by a tiny lamp but dragging with you the corpse of your reminiscences, mistakes, misfortunes and [spiritual] murder.
"You will never get rid of your past, you will always drag this corpse, while your life is playing its drums."
The idyllic central scene seems to have little to do with the horrors on either side. An outwardly peaceful depiction of the serene departure of a boat filled with a happy family, setting out across a quiet bright blue river.
But the masked, mystical boatman, gently handling a huge turquoise fish, and the crowns atop the heads of the happy couple hint at a myth -- perhaps Charon ferrying souls across the River Styx to the kingdom of dead?
"Who knows," Beckmann is quoted as having said. "Perhaps the king and the queen have been liberated, got their freedom from the sufferings of life, overcome them. The queen holds her most valuable treasure -- freedom -- in the shape of a baby. Freedom is the only thing that makes the difference. This is a departure, this is the new start."
Because the painting was created in the darkness of 1933 Germany, some art critics looked for and found reflections of the fascist propaganda campaigns in it. The thin skinny face of the drummer in the right-hand panel is reminiscent of Goebbels. A swastika can be found in the combination of his arm, drum stick drum harness.
But Beckmann warned that the plot of the painting did not refer specifically to the policies of the day, and it should not be viewed simply as a protest against the cruelty of Nazi executioners and madness of the Nazi epoch.
"The painting works for all times," Beckmann said to one of the exhibitors of his works. He said it referred to the departure "from the fake brightness of life to the essence of things, hidden behind their outer cover."
One recurring motif is fish, which appear in each panel -- under the armpit of the blind-folded bell-boy in the right-hand painting; in the boat, in the net nearby; and even in the executioner's axe in the left hand painting. Their presence has been variously interpreted by art critics. Some see the fish as messages for the doomed victims, others see an allusion to Babylonian goddesses, and still others say the fish represent the dying souls of the executioner's victims.
As for Beckmann. He said of "Departure": "If people cannot understand it by spiritual empathy, it is useless to exhibit it.
"For me it is...telling me the truth that I cannot reveal with words. The picture will only say something to those who consciously or unconsciously carry in themselves a metaphysical code essentially similar [to mine]."
What: "Departure" by Max Beckmann. On loan from the New York Museum of Modern Art.
Where: Room 342, the Hermitage Museum, 34 Dvorts-ovaya Nab.
When: Tuesday-Sunday, 10.30 am - 5 pm, until mid-January.
Cost: 40,000 roubles. 2,000 roubles for Russian and CIS citizens.