Main River Landscape

The scene depicted in ‘Main River’ has been identified as the Lower Main Bridge in Frankfurt, the viewer looking on towards the Sachsenhausen section of the city. Towards the upper right we see the Städel Museum’s recognisable dome, and in the background the Friedensbrücke (the ‘Peace Bridge’). As Beckmann’s composition for this print was taken from an earlier sketch, the view has been reversed from real life. Purely landscape, the image might seem incongruous in a series entitled Gesichter: Beckmann’s studio lay only several hundred feet away from the bridge, however, leading on into Scweizer Strasse, and in this sense the view is a literal ‘vision’ in which Beckmann perhaps found solace during wartime.