From the Saint Louis Art Museum email today —-

Christ and the Sinner

In this unconventional depiction, Jesus stops an angry mob from stoning a woman to death. The biblical story’s message of non-violence expresses Max Beckmann’s pacifism after his wartime service. Beckmann volunteered as a medical orderly during the war, but constant exposure to dead and dying soldiers traumatized him. This is one of the first paintings he made after his discharge in 1917. Twenty years later, “Christ and the Sinner” appeared in the infamous “Entartete Kunst (Degenerate Art)” show, a propaganda exhibition organized by the Nazi government to indoctrinate Germans against Expressionist and abstract art.

IMAGE CREDIT

Max Beckmann, German, 1884–1950; Christ and the Sinner, 1917; oil on canvas; 58 3/4 x 49 7/8 inches; Saint Louis Art Museum, Bequest of Curt Valentin  185:1955