Re/Casting Kokoschka: ETHICS AND AESTHETICS,EPISTEMOLOGY AND POLITICS IN FIN-DE-SIE`CLE VIENNA

This interpretive study of KokoschkaOs Expressionist work critically examines the claims for OtruthO often made on behalf of KokoschkaOs portraits, as well as the fundamental assumptions underlying his portraiture: the interchangeability of the physical and psychological, the psychological veracity of mythical narratives, and the ability of style to convey ethical and epistemological truth. This study also draws attention to the numerous parallels between KokoschkaOs Expressionism and Freudian psychoanalysis, to the ways in which style in Vienna in 1900 could convey political (especially antifeminist and anti-Semitic) meanings.