A Sorrowful Poem

Oscar Kokoschka,born in Austria,is a representative of the Vienna separatists after Gustav Klimt.Although his works are influenced by Klimt’s artistic style,he pays more attention to the expression of his emotions.Kokoschka seeks his own artistic path by exploring the characteristics of human nature,and portrait painting is the manifestation of this exploration.Starting from Kokoschka’s artistic life and painting style,this paper mainly studies his portrait creation.His works are mostly painted with strong paints,and his strong emotions are conveyed by heavy brush strokes.This not only highlights the inner feelings that the painter wants to express,but also accurately depicts the spirit and characteristics of the characters.The painter’s works are intensely contrasted in color,intense and melancholy,while the spatial processing of his pictures tends to be planar,mainly dealing with the spatial relationship of the pictures by the change of color and the superposition of brush strokes,which alternately fuses the color and brush strokes,making the space of the pictures feel squeezed and blocked.Most of the painters’ portrait paintings are about middle-aged women,men and children,with a solemn,uneasy and intriguing look.In troubled times,Kokoschka suffered from the failure of love,so he was full of reluctance and indignation toward reality,so his portraits reveal sadness.Through the retrospect of Kokoschka’s life experience and the analysis of portrait language,the author finds that his painting language changes constantly with the change of life,and reveals his inner emotional turbulence.Therefore,the author believes that the use of the word "sadness" to summarize the painter’s life not only shows that the painter has experienced the vicissitudes and tribulations of the world,but also reflects his feeling of helplessness in the heart of loneliness and compassion in painting creation.