Young Men by the Sea
Max Beckmann, 1905
Image not available: work still under copyright
Young Men by the Sea is an oil on canvas painted by Max Beckmann in 1905, when he was twenty-one. The scene shows several naked young men by the sea: six stand out in the foreground, four standing and two seated on the ground, while others play or swim in the background. One of the figures on the right seems to be playing a musical instrument. The arrangement of the bodies, posed in varied attitudes, somewhat recalls an anatomical study and points to an ideal of classical male beauty. The work reveals the academic training of the young painter, but also the imprint of the Post-Impressionists he had only recently encountered, such as Paul Cézanne and Vincent van Gogh, after visiting France the year before. It was well received at the time: Beckmann won the Villa Prize, and the picture was acquired by the palace in Weimar, where it still hangs. Years later, the artist himself admitted it lacked a personal stamp, which today makes it readable as a record of his early apprenticeship.
- Painter
- Max Beckmann
- Date
- 1905
- Medium
- oil paint, canvas
- Museum
- Klassik Stiftung Weimar, Weimar
- Genre
- genre art