Theory of the Ridiculous: Jean Paul, Max Beckmann, and Dostoevsky's Donkey

Abstract

German artist Max Beckmann (1884–1950) was also a diarist who wrote essays on art theory and four dramatic plays. Whilst scripting Ebbi, his tale of an urban fool, Beckmann created an enigmatic set of prints for the publisher Reinhard Piper. The print cycle, Der Jahrmarkt (1921), contains ten images that appear to reinforce the prevailing reading of Beckmann as a commentator on the Theatre of Life. By re-focusing on the suite through a hermeneutic examination of the images, this article will instead propose that Beckmann structured Der Jahrmarkt as a paradigmatic extension of specifi c Romantic literary and lexical procedures advocated by the German Romantic writer Jean Paul in his Vorschule der Asthetik (1813).