Is there to be no getting away from this loathsome vegetative physicality?.. .Utter contempt for the lewd enticements that always lure us back into l… - Max Beckmann

The world is rather shot to pieces [end of World War II - 1945], but the spectators climb out of their caves and pretend to have again become normal and customary humans who ask each other's pardon instead of eating one another or sucking each other's blood. The entertaining folly of war evaporates, distinguished boredom sits down again on the dignified old overstuffed chairs.. .May I report about myself that I have had a truly grotesque time, brim-full with work, Nazi persecutions, bombs, hunger, and again and again work – in spite of everything [a. o. using his bed sheets as canvas for the new paintings]

Arrival at break of dawn. Veiled giants stood sleepily in wet mist on Manhattan.. .Yes, New York is really grandiose. But it stinks of burned fat, just like the sacrificial meal of the slain enemies among the savages. But nevertheless – crazy, crazy, crazy! Babylon is a kindergarten compared with this, and the tower of Babel here becomes the mass erection of a monstrous and senseless will. I am sympathetic.

Put the picture away or, preferably, send it back to me, dear Valentin. If people cannot understand it is based on their inner engagement with these matters, then there is no point in showing the thing at all.