Blind Man's Buff

Max Beckmann

1945

Oil on canvas

Minneapolis Institute of Art

<i>Blind Man's Buff</i> is the most important of the five triptychs created by Max Beckmann while exiled in Holland between 1937-1947 - an exile necessitated by the Nazi's inclusion of ten of his works in their exhibition of degenerate art in 1937. Like much of his art, <i>Blind Man's Buff</i> is allusive and symbolic, inviting explication yet resisting explicit interpretation. Yet, the artist's use of the three-paneled format that was traditional to Medieval and Renaissance altarpieces evokes religious associations. Beckmann also drew upon classical sources, calling the figures at center the gods and the animal-headed man the minot