330
PARTISAN REVIEW
affair that didn't end well and
to
whom he wrote over four hundred let–
ters, is portrayed in a dark landscape, in whose sky one can make out
Alma's unborn child. In these, and in the other seventy or so portraits
in this exhibition, Kokoschka used broad strokes and aimed to catch the
psyche of the portrayed, to strip them of all social armor. Alma ridiculed
Kokoschka's painting of her, and Moritz Hirsch, a businessman, hung
his in the attic. Kokoschka's expressionism never flattered.
Kokoschka, like Freud, expected
to
penetrate
to
the inner beings of
his subjects, whereas the young artists in the Jewish Museum almost
purposefully avoided all content beneath the surface. Their artsy-craftsy
productions, I believe, will not be of any interest years from now, in the
way we appreciate Kokoschka's skilled brush as well as the penetration
of his sitters' (who often roamed around the room while he painted
them) personalities . Because Kokoschka did not try
to
please, he often
fai led
to
sell his paintings. But whether he made "art for art's sake" or
tried
to
epater La bourgeoisie,
he deserves his place in museums and per–
manent collections, something that cannot be said for the glorified films
and constructions about Nazi atrocities-by artists who ultimately can
be found to
epater
the last survivors of the death camps .
Salander-O'Reilly Galleries
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