View source for Max Picard

{{Use dmy dates|date=November 2023}}
{{Short description|German-Swiss philosopher}}

{{Infobox writer
| name             = Max Picard
| birth_date       = {{Birth date|1888|06|05|df=y}}
| death_date       = {{Death date and age|1965|10|03|1888|06|05|df=y}}
| birth_place      = [[Schopfheim]], [[Grand Duchy of Baden|Baden]], [[German Empire|Germany]]
| death_place      = [[Sorengo]], Switzerland
| occupation       = writer, philosopher
| language         = German
| citizenship      = Switzerland
}}

'''Max Picard''' (5 June 1888 in [[Schopfheim]], [[Grand Duchy of Baden|Baden]], [[German Empire|Germany]] – 3 October 1965 in [[Sorengo]], Switzerland) was a German-[[Swiss people|Swiss]] writer and philosopher, important as one of the few thinkers writing from a deeply [[Platonism|Platonic]] sensibility in the 20th century.

== Biography ==
Born to a Jewish family in [[Schopfheim]], a German village on the [[Germany–Switzerland border|Swiss border]], Max Picard studied medicine and received his medical degree in 1911. He practiced medicine, first in [[Heidelberg]] and later in [[Munich]]. Unsatisfied with the [[positivism|positivist]] and [[Darwinism|Darwinian]] orientations of the medical profession at the time, he began as of 1915 to distance himself from it to turn more towards philosophy. In 1919, he immigrated to Switzerland, first to [[Locarno]] and later to [[Brissago]]. 

In 1929, he completed work on ''Das Menschengesicht'' (''The Human Face''). In 1934, ''Die Flucht vor Gott'' (''The Flight From God'') was published. He developed a friendship with fellow immigrant and artist Gunter Böhmer in the late 1930s.<ref>{{in lang|de}} [http://gunter-boehmer.de/biografie.htm Biographie de Gunter Böhmer] sur le site officiel de l'artiste.</ref> In 1939, Picard converted to [[Roman Catholicism]] from the Judaism of his youth.<ref>{{in lang|de}} [https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,822068,00.html]</ref> 

He first met the French philosopher [[Gabriel Marcel]] in 1947, and developed a friendship and steady correspondence throughout their lives (published in 2006<ref>''Gabriel Marcel-Max Picard: Correspondance 1947–1965'', [[Éditions L'Harmattan|L'Harmattan]], 2006</ref>). Marcel provided the foreword to the first French translation of Picard's ''Die Welt des Schweigens'' (''The World of Silence'') in 1953. Picard received the [[Johann-Peter-Hebel-Preis]] in 1952. 

[[Emmanuel Levinas]] praised Picard's work in Levinas' collection ''Noms propres'' (''Proper Names'') in 1976.

==Selected books==

* 1917 ''Expressionistische Bauernmalerei'' [''Expressionist Folk Painting'']. München: Delphin
* 1921 ''Der letzte Mensch'' [''The Last Man'']. Leipzig: E. T. Tal & Co.
* 1930 ''Das Menschengesicht'' [''The Human Face'']. München: Delphin (published in English in 1931)
* 1934 ''Die flucht vor Gott'' [''The Flight From God'']. Erlenbach: Rentsch (published in English in 1952)
* 1947 ''Hitler in uns selbst'' [''Hitler in Our Selves'']. Erlenbach: Rentsch (published in English in 1947)
* 1948 ''Die Welt des Schweigens'' [''The World of Silence'']. Erlenbach-Zürich/Konstanz: Rensch
* 1954 ''Die Atomisierung der Modernen Künste'' [''The Atomization of Modern Arts'']. Hamburg: Furche

==References==
{{Reflist}}

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Picard, Max}}
[[Category:1888 births]]
[[Category:1965 deaths]]
[[Category:20th-century essayists]]
[[Category:20th-century German male writers]]
[[Category:20th-century German non-fiction writers]]
[[Category:20th-century Roman Catholics]]
[[Category:20th-century Swiss non-fiction writers]]
[[Category:20th-century Swiss philosophers]]
[[Category:Catholic philosophers]]
[[Category:Converts to Roman Catholicism from Judaism]]
[[Category:German emigrants to Switzerland]]
[[Category:19th-century German Jews]]
[[Category:German male non-fiction writers]]
[[Category:German Roman Catholic writers]]
[[Category:German philosophers of technology]]
[[Category:Jewish philosophers]]
[[Category:People from Lörrach (district)]]
[[Category:Philosophers of art]]
[[Category:Philosophers of religion]]
[[Category:Philosophers of science]]
[[Category:Philosophy writers]]
[[Category:Platonists]]
[[Category:Swiss essayists]]
[[Category:Swiss male non-fiction writers]]
[[Category:Swiss Roman Catholic writers]]


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