Kokoschka Human Body

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For centuries, artists treated the human body with reverence. The Greeks idealized the human body in sculpture. Michelangelo idealized the human body in painting, as did the Romantics. While the Realists may have been the first to resist idealization of their subject material, it wasn’t until the Expressionists in late 19th century that artists began to deliberately distort the human body. Painters such as Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele used new painting styles to explore a greater truth not accessible through representative art. For example, Klimt frequently recalled Greek and Roman myths in his works, such as the Furies in Jurisprudence. Schiele used distortion of the outer body to express a tormented inner state, such as in Seated Male Nude …show more content…

The Symbolists sought to go beyond superficial reality to arrive at a greater idea beneath the surface by using symbolic structures from Classical mythology and Christian tradition. Similarly, the figure in the Kokoschka’s cover design is more than just a self-portrait: it is also a likening of the artist as Jesus Christ. The figure points to a gash in his side, reminiscent of Jesus pointing to his wounds when Thomas Didymus did not believe he had resurrected. In a similar way, Kokoschka attempts to convey himself as an artist misunderstood by society. One may interpret the figure as Kokoschka expressing disappointment in his audience for not being able to accept his style of art. Concurrently, the figure has a shaven head, reminiscent of a criminal. Indeed, Kokoschka’s radical artistic style attracted public scandal. He received a warning from the police during a production of his play Murderer, the Hope of Women, and his art was later labelled degenerate by the Nazis (Unruh). In this light, it is interesting to note that Kokoschka is not hesitant to combine the figure’s likeliness to Christ with the figure’s likeliness to a prisoner. However, this seeming contradiction serves to further strengthen his identification as a martyr, as Jesus was – in a sense – a falsely accused prisoner. As Schiele did in his self-portraits, Kokoschka distances himself from …show more content…

The trend correlates well with the rise of psychoanalysis; just as Freud accessed an individual’s psyche as the origin of his or her desires and actions, so to did artists with paint. For example, Egon Schiele is known for their many self-portraits. The most interesting feature of these self-portraits, however, is that each is markedly unique. While Schiele is in a tortured position in Seated Male Nude (self-portrait), he displays a fragile self-confidence in Self-Portrait with Physalis. Indeed, Kokoschka also painted many self-portraits, ranging from the grimacing Christ-like figure in his cover design for Der Sturm to the _______. Artists during this time used self-portraits to paint their many inner psyches and emotions, resulting in a wide-variety of unique self-portraits all portraying the artist. Once again, the Symbolist influence may be seen here. One of the Symbolists’ main objectives was to give voice to the not voiceable, to access the not accessible. Indeed, one may argue that van Gogh was the first to use self-portraiture as a means of expressing emotions and the inner psyche. Artists such as Schiele and Kokoschka further developed these ideas: whereas van Gogh mainly used color to express emotion, the Expressionists further distanced themselves from representing reality, distorting the human body to express their feelings.

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