This magnificently illustrated book explores Max Beckmann's idea of the world as a stage while also providing a striking introduction to one of the 20th century's most spectacularly creative periods of art and design. Many of the paintings by Max Beckmann show the world of the theater, the circus, and vaudeville. He assumed the position of the spectator and his paintings were the stage. He was driven by pageantry and this is the first publication to show how Beckmann's artistic theater was palpably visual while also showing his work in the context of the history of ideas. It brings home how the painter and author of dramas that has hitherto received little attention saw himself as an "impresario, director, and scene shifter." This book grants readers highly innovative and captivating access to one of the exceptional artists of the last century and his extraordinary visual and formal language. 200 colour illustrations