The Art of Self-Discovery:
Expressionist Portraiture

Sarah Labowitz

 

With the 1908 publication of his doctoral dissertation, Abstraction and
Empathy, Wilhelm Worringer brought to the Expressionist artists bold new
ideas about the purpose and direction of art in the new century.
Worringer explored the concept of Kunstwollen - the artist's will to
form - that Alois Riegl, a Viennese art historian, first articulated in
the late nineteenth century. In his 1893 essay "Leading Characteristics
of the Late Roman Kunstwollen," Riegl described the desire of man "to
interpret the world as it can be most easily done in accordance with his
inner drive" (174). In a simple phrase, Riegl captured the spirit that
drove the Expressionists to form art as a means of understanding
themselves and the often-tumultuous world in which they lived.

Portraiture and self-portraiture provide a unique window through
which to look at how the Expressionists viewed and depicted themselves
and those around them. Käthe Kollwitz, Ludwig Meidner, and Oskar
Kokoschka each explore themes in their own lives through their art and
specifically, portraiture.

Kunstwollen finds one of it clearest manifestations in
self-portraiture: the artist tries not only to express his inner drive
through aesthetic presentation, but also to examine that drive through
portrayal of the most intimate subject, the self. One historian's
characterization of Kollwitz's self-portraiture as representing "not
merely outward appearance but an understanding of the self" might be
borrowed to describe the principle of Kunstwollen in self-portraiture
more generally (Forster-Hahn 28). Throughout her life, Kollwitz
experimented with self-portraiture, producing over one hundred images of
herself from the time she was eighteen in 1885 until two years before
her death in 1945 (Forster-Hahn 28). Selbstbildnis im Profil
(Self-Portrait in Profile, Fig. 6) is a study in self-examination done
relatively late in Kollwitz's life that explores her experience as an
aging artist (Noun 64). While the warmth of the lithographic crayon and
the large size of the portrait relative to the paper invite examination
of the artist's quiet strength, she shows only one side of her face to
the viewer; she simultaneously withholds and divulges the most intimate
parts of herself. The use of lithography reveals the soft roundness of
age in her wrinkled brow as darkness encompasses her tired eyes and
fallen chin. Heavy tones weigh on the artist's aging features while the
portrait fades quietly into the absence of ink and the white of her
hair. Selbstbildnis im Profil does not, however, depict a fading artist.
Kollwitz was at the height of artistic success in 1927 and the Soviet
Union honored her with a major exhibition in the fall of that year (Noun
64). The determination of her steady gaze and the strong lines of her
mouth and nose bespeak the wisdom of Kollwitz's age, while the right
side of her face remains hidden from view - unrevealed, but not
unexplored.

The spirit of Kunstwollen was widespread in Central Europe in
the early years of the twentieth century, as demonstrated by the work of
Austrian Oskar Kokoschka. Kokoschka was closely associated with the
German Expressionists through his relationship with Herwarth Walden of
Berlin and Walden's political and artistic journal, Der Sturm, which
Kokoschka published in Austria. Kokoschka's self-portraiture reveals a
sense of Kunstwollen similar to that found in the work of the German
Expressionists. Selbstbildnis (Brustbild mit Zeichenstift)
(Self-Portrait [Half-Length with Drawing Crayon], Fig. 5) was part of an
eleven-print series intended to accompany the lyrics of Bach's Cantata
60, "O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort" ("O Eternity, Thou Word of Thunder"),
taken from Revelation 13 (Wingler and Welz 58). Kokoschka reputedly said
of the prints, "Certainly it's...fear that I'm depicting, but this
wasn't thought and laid out before hand" (qtd. in Field and Sievers),
emphasizing the revelatory nature of Kunstwollen to the individual
artist. The eyes belie this fear as Kokoschka looks nervously away, not
only from the viewer, but from himself as he draws on the stone. The
line of the lithographic crayon is quick and frantic, heightening the
unsettled feeling that pervades the print. Kokoschka draws his hands
disproportionately large in order to call attention to the crayon that
he holds and thus to the art that is his life's work. But he is nervous
even with the crayon and appears to be tapping it against the right hand
that is pressed against his chest in a seemingly defensive gesture.
While Kokoschka may not have set out to depict fear and uncertainty, he
discovered through art and self-portraiture this feeling of unease that
is so evident in Selbstbildnis (Brustbild mit Zeichenstift).

Much of the art and portraiture of the Expressionists, while
demonstrating the principle of Kunstwollen found in their
self-portraits, did not focus solely on the portrayal of the artist
himself. In many of their prints, the Expressionists depicted friends,
bourgeois supporters of their art, and other notables within the
artistic community. But perhaps most interestingly, they printed
portraits of ordinary people: the uncelebrated and unknown members of
the proletariat whom the artists hoped to reach through their art (see
MacDonald). Among the Expressionists, Ludwig Meidner may have been the
greatest advocate for artistic solidarity with the working class. In the
1919 manifesto for the Novembergruppe, "An alle Künstler, Dichter,
Musiker" ("To All Artists, Poets, Musicians"), Meidner and fellow artist
Max Pechstein wrote,

Let a holy solidarity ally us painters and poets
with the poor! Have not many among us also known misery and the shame of
hunger and material dependence?!... [L]et us make common cause with our
intimidated, defenseless brothers, for the sake of the spirit...[that]
the worker respects... . (qtd. in Long 175)

Meidner's commitment to the bond between working man and artist
is evident in his choice of subjects and in the aesthetic similarities
of his self-portraits and portraits of the working class. In
portraiture, Meidner instructed artists to "press together wrinkled
brow, root of nose and eyes. Dig like a mole down into the mysterious
deep of the pupils and into the white of the eye and don't let your pen
stop until the soul of that one opposite you is welded to yours in a
covenant of pathos" (qtd. in Robison). Schuster Petersen, ein Kommunist
(The Shoemaker Petersen, a Communist, Fig. 7) and Selbstbildnis (Ludwig
Meidner III) (Self-Portrait [Ludwig Meidner III], Fig. 8), both from
1919, illustrate this relationship between artist and subject in the
striking similarities of Meidner's portrayal of the two men. While
artist and shoemaker have obviously distinctive physical attributes
(Petersen's mustache and glasses, for example, contrast the openness of
Meidner's face), Meidner draws out many of the features in the two
portraits in the same way, emphasizing exaggerated foreheads, brooding
eyebrows, and swept-back hair; the drypoint line even finds similar
wrinkles on the two weathered faces. It is as if Meidner hoped to
discover in his examination of self through Kunstwollen the rugged
spirit of the working man with whom he so deeply wanted to identify. The
interplay between the two portraits is a reflection of the artist's
ideological commitment to solidarity with the working class and his
passionate search within himself for a shared spirit.

The Expressionists firmly believed that, at its best, art could
be a means of discovery and transformation, both for themselves and
their society. As Kunstwollen pushed the Expressionists to create many
forms of art, portraiture remained an avenue for self-examination. With
the possibility for transformation, however, came the risk that what
they discovered would unmask fear, uncertainty, and age. But sometimes,
they revealed the possibility for understanding and transcending those
fears.