21. Max Beckmann
(1884-1950)

Jakob Ringt mit den Engel (Jacob Wrestles with the Angel)

(click on image to print)
Beckmann, Jacob Wrestles

Jakob Ringt mit den Engel (Jacob Wrestles with the Angel)

Drypoint, 1920, 288 x 222 mm., Hofmaier 179 ii/ii. Fine, rich impression on laid paper with large, slightly uneven margins, from the edition of 200. Impressions of the second state were signed only in the plate; there were 65 pencil signed impressions of the first state. The subject is taken from Genesis 32:25, but Beckmann has mysteriously incorporated in the image the ladder -- from the earlier vision of Jacob in which he saw a ladder from earth to heaven with angels moving up and down. The result is a complex composition, highly expressive and dramatic but hardly idealized, that resembles no other depiction of the story.