Exploring the life of Kokoschka, an eccentric “degenerate” artist
The Artist that Was Sabotaged by the Nazis and Fled his Country
Little red fish,
little fish red
with a triple-edged knife I’ll cut you dead,
then with my fingers I’ll tear you in two,
put an end to the silent circling you do.
As a fish owner, this poem gives me a bit of the creeps, I’ll admit. But it also troubles me that it might not have anything to do with fish at all.
Oskar Kokoschka was an Austrian painter, poet, writer, and teacher best known for his powerful expressionistic portraitures and sceneries, as well as his ideas on the vision that impacted the Viennese Expressionist movement. A movement that hosted more brilliant painters of the calibre of Egon Schiele.
Kokoschka, who will see himself as a martyr of the arts, picked up a paintbrush to participate in passionate debates concerning the mysteries of human psychology, life and the unconscious. Given the atmosphere of the period and the rising conservatism that saw the abolition of contemporary art, the painter referred to himself as a “degenerate” in a self-portrait. A word, an insult…
