Oskar Kokoschka (Pöchlarn, March 1, 1886 - Montreux, February 22, 1980) was an Austrian painter and playwright.
Oskar Kokoschka's Biography
Oskar Kokoschka was born in Pöchlarn, a town in Lower Austria, on March 1, 1886 in a suburban house. He was the second son of Gustav Josef Kokoschka, a Czech goldsmith, and Maria Romana Kokoschka (née Loidl). His older brother died at an early age in 1887; he had a sister, Berta (born 1889) and a brother, Bohuslav (born 1892).
Oskar believed strongly in omens, spurred on by the story of a fire that broke out in Pöchlarn shortly after his mother gave birth to him. Kokoschka's life was not easy, mainly because of his father's lack of financial help. His family was constantly moving to smaller and smaller apartments, further and further away from the thriving city center.
Concluding that his father was incompetent, Kokoschka began to turn to his mother; he felt that he himself was the head of the family and continued to support it when he had the financial opportunity. Kokoschka attended secondary school at the Realschule, where emphasis was placed on the study of modern subjects such as language and science.
Kokoschka was not interested in these subjects; in fact, he found that he excelled solely in drawing, and spent most of his time reading classical literature during class. This education in classical literature is said to have influenced his artwork.
One of his professors suggested that Kokoschka go on to choose a career devoted to the fine arts. Against his father's wishes, Kokoschka was admitted to the Kunstgewerbeschule (University of Applied Arts), where he was attracted to the Baroque works of Franz Anton Maulbertsch, the new style of Gustav Klimt, and the incisive painting of Lovis Corinth.
His artistic training can be traced to the environment of the Viennese Secession. He studied in direct contact with Gustav Klimt, thanks to whom he was introduced to the Viennese public during the 1908 Kunstschau (Art Show). It was on this occasion that the artist came to the attention of critics, who gave him the appellation "super wild."
His works, in fact, eschewed all ideals of beauty and grace and instead laid bare the harsher and more disconcerting aspects of existence. On this same occasion his play "Assassin, Hope of Women" was performed, which caused scandal and uproar in the audience.
The works produced between 1907 and 1912 influenced, among others, Egon Schiele; his figures were delicately drawn and irregularly arranged. In 1910 Walden, founder of the Berlin avant-garde magazine "Der Sturm," convinced the young Kokoschka to move to Berlin, where he began editing "Portrait of the Week," becoming the magazine's first illustrator.
He frequented radical and avant-garde cultural circles, harboring particular admiration for Edvard Munch, the Fauves and the painters of the Die Brücke group, one of the early nuclei of German expressionism. In 1914 he became a member of the Berlin Secession, then joined Der Blaue Reiter, a group of artists who made use of pure colors spread out in broad patches.
His works of this period feature violent chromaticism and a careful psychological analysis intended to investigate the inner self, influenced in this by the new psychoanalytic theories of Sigmund Freud. With The Bride of the Wind, 1914, his tragic painting, he reached full expressive maturity, which placed him in a personal position within Expressionism.
The painting was a tribute to Alma Mahler, an Austrian painter and composer, widow of composer Gustav Mahler, with whom he had had an unfortunate love affair that influenced his entire life and output.
With the Expressionist style Oskar Kokoschka had in common the intention to express sensations, feelings and states of mind and the aptitude for deforming subjects, but it diverged from that of many of his contemporaries, so although today he is generally regarded as one of the leading exponents of Expressionism, at that time he was sometimes isolated from the other exponents of the group.
During World War I he was wounded on the Eastern Front; after a stay in the military hospital, he was discharged for mental instability. From 1917 to 1924 he taught at the Dresden Academy, where he was able to study Rembrandt and Old Master painting closely. During these years he exhibited at the Dada Gallery in Zurich with Max Ernst, Paul Klee and Vasily Kandinsky, and participated in the Venice Biennale.
Kokoschka never fully accepted abstractionist tendencies: behind his convulsive expression of reality is always perceptible the drama of his spiral sign, baroque-inspired and with profound influences from Paul Cézanne. Beginning in 1924 he traveled in Europe and Africa, painting the landscapes he encountered through vibrant drawings with bright colors.
In 1933 he stayed for a long time in Rapallo, executing numerous portraits, landscapes and nudes. He also tried his hand at dramaturgy, writing plays that were fundamental to expressionist theater.
Returning to Vienna, he took refuge in Prague after the German annexation of Austria. In 1938, when Prague was also about to be occupied by the Germans, he emigrated to London. The Hitler regime confiscated his works, some of which were exhibited in Munich in the Degenerate Art Exhibition.
In 1953 he settled in Villeneuve, Canton Vaud in Switzerland. During these years his painting gradually moved away from themes of psychological analysis and the subconscious to treat large spaces, landscapes and city views according to post-impressionist patterns.
The search for the union of feeling and form pushed him to seek total participation, without empty formalism, in the most diverse subjects, from mountain scenery to city views. He began a series of classes and meetings that led him to train numerous artists such as Rudolf Kortokraks, Marco Sassone and Silvio Loffredo. He died in Montreux on February 22, 1980.
Works of Oskar Kokoschka
Still Life with Dead Lamb (1909)
Still Life with Dead Lamb is an oil painting on canvas measuring 84x114 cm, painted in 1909. The work, housed in the Österreichische Galerie in Vienna, depicts a dead lamb in the center, to the right is a vase of flowers, at the bottom left is a turtle, and to its right is a mouse and a salamander larva.
Portrait of Adolf Loos (1909)
Portrait of Adolf Loos is a 74x91 cm oil on canvas made in 1909. The work is preserved at Charlottenburg Castle (Berlin). In the center is Adolf Loos. The dark background greatly emphasizes the lightness of the face and hands. In Kokoschka's paintings one usually finds the figure of the hands in prominence because, according to the artist, they highlight the subject's personality. Inspired by an image by Robert Louis Stevenson.
The Bride of the Wind (1914)
In "The Bride of the Wind," also known as "The Storm," the artist expresses in the most intense and accomplished way the need to project out of himself his own vital tensions, doubts, and anguished contradictions.
The large canvas, dating from 1914, in fact represents the end of the overwhelming and tormented love affair that, for more than two years, had bound the artist to Alma Mahler, widow of the famous Bohemian composer Gustav Mahler.
The two lovers are depicted in a kind of decomposed bed of clouds, surrounded by the storm of passions, experienced with the devastating intensity of a total love.
But the convulsive turmoil of the scene is opposed by the serene sleep of the woman who, still unaware of the coming end, sleeps quietly and trustingly, curling up with sensual tenderness against the naked body of her beloved. Kokoschka depicts himself awake, his eyes gazing into the distance and his gnarled hands entwined.
The murky, muddy colors and the swirling, mysterious background participate with material evidence in the inner turmoil and anguish that torn at the author.
In the work, preserved at the Kuntsmuseum in Basel, Kokoschka wanted to emphasize his awareness concerning the fact that their love could end at any moment. Not surprisingly, this occurred shortly after the painting was finished, and the painter sold it to buy himself a cavalry uniform to go to war.
London, Waterloo Bridge (1926)
London, Waterloo Bridge is an oil on canvas, 89 x 103 cm, kept in the National Museum and Gallery of Wales, Cardiff. Kokoschka usually depicted some city views of London, and in this case he painted Waterloo Bridge from two different angles taken from the hotel where he was staying. This painting depicts the River Thames crossed by several small boats and Waterloo Bridge and Blackfriars Bridge; St. Paul's Cathedral can be seen in the distance.
Oskar Kokoschka's Theatrical production
Kokoschka made himself an interpreter of man's anxieties and the ongoing struggle between the archetypes of Man and Woman in search of the Neue Mensch (New Man) in his theatrical production, which suffered severe ostracism in Italy because of the style dense with hermeticism and complex ellipses.
Each of his plays is a clash of opposing dualisms (Man-Woman, Light-Shadow), and not infrequently death and rebirth play pivotal roles in the emergence of a new identity.
- 1909: Mörder, Hoffnung der Frauen (Murderer, Hope of Women)
- 1911: Der brennende Dornbusch (The Burning Bush)
- 1917: Hiob (Job), originally known as Sphinx und Strohmann (Sphinx and Straw Man)
- 1919: Orpheus und Eurydike (Orpheus and Eurydice)
- 1972: Comenius