In 1943 Max Beckmann painted a picture while in exile in Amsterdam which is unique among his works: Les Artistes with Vegetables, as he himself titled it. He can be seen here with the painters Vordemberge-Gildewart (front left) and Otto Herbert Fiedler (back left) as well as the poet Wolfgang Frommel (back right). All of them are artists (Les Artistes). It is night and they are sitting at a table. In the middle of them – on a white cloth and correspondingly important – we see a large candle which spreads light both in the literary and in a symbolic sense. It is a symbol shared by these men, who met one another in Amsterdam, but who never sat together as depicted here.

It is therefore an imaginary get-together, a companionship shared by these emigrants in a time of need created and shaped by the painter. The War was raging and Holland had been under German occupation since 1940. As if isolated from the world outside, the four sit closely together, with the light of intellect shining down on them while outside darkness dominated in every sense of the word, a darkness which was only lightened by an eerie, undefined fire that is alluded to behind Frommel. They come across as serious and solemn, as if gathered in front of an altar to which each of them brings his gift, the ironically mentioned “Gemüse” (vegetables) in the title, with which Beckmann characterized each of them without all of the symbols being comprehensible for us. His symbol is the mirror, which he holds in his left hand. But what can be seen in it? Should the glimpse of the pale face allude to death? This does not seem to fit into the painting, as the four depicted here are offering resistance against the danger threatening from outside.

The idea for the painting possibly came from Wolfgang Frommel, who once said while looking at Beckmann’s works “There’s us as well, the Argonauts, why don’t you paint us?” (Erhard Göpel: Max Beckmann, der Maler, 1957) With his analogy to the ancient heroes, he was referring to the circle of those in Amsterdam who shared the experience of living in exile as well as a similar intellectual attitude. It was a comment that obviously had a lasting influence on Max Beckmann. Characteristic for him is that he does not merely depict the situation in a way that corresponds to reality and can accordingly be expressed simply in words, but much more: what we have here is a community of artists which, because of the individuals depicted in the painting, must refer to the exile situation in Amsterdam, while the meaning can also be understood independent of this, that is, that serious artists always remain among themselves.

Further reading:
Lenz, Christian: Schön und schrecklich wie das Leben. Die Kunst Max Beckmanns 1937 bis 1945. In: Max Beckmann. Exil in Amsterdam. Ausstellungskatalog. Amsterdam / München: Hatje Canz 2007/2008, S. 33-107