RE: "Max Beckmann in New York" at the Met

I began a long-form essay in October for an application. At first I set out to discuss the current art critical and academic/pedagogic assumptions on 4D art, specifically painting. A fortuitous hackcidental encounter at University of Oxford Christ Church Upper Library redirected my course. I focused instead on astronomical time, the urges to predictability and novelty and a cascade of related juicy dimensional morsels. I mentioned Max Beckmann in several essay versions. After all he was one of the first European artists to call himself a 4D painter.

Last week I visited the Met (always awesome) after a perfect breakfast at Nectar (always awesome), on the pretense of an early St. Valentine's date with my wife. Call it multi-layered 4D uti-soc-temp scheduling. The objective for the Met viewing was the Beckmann exhibit, which closes February 20. The day we went was unseasonably nice.

Beckmann poetically described his 4D aesthetic, orienting the words to spiritual experience. Painting the 3D life in 2D dimensions requires a 4D translation. For Beckmann, this process generated an internal sensation that approached the mystical. Beckmann's mysterious dream is alternately languorous, smoky, wine-stained,sun-splashed and nightmarish, hellish. The Met exhibit subsumes Beckmann's speculative musing within a more prosaic 20th Century narrative. It's fine, though. The paintings speak for themselves, and the artist, too, and the vehicle is a rich spectrum of color well-applied, and a sound 4D pictorial architectural structure. Max had many good moves. For anyone interested in 4D painting, this show is must-see.

The galleries the Met chose for the exhibit seem run-down, but they are easily accessible from the main entrance.