Kokoschka

et la musique | and music

The link between painting and music in the works of Oscar Kokoschka is explored in this original volume.

The austrian painter Oskar Kokoschka (1886-1980) was closely linked to his country’s musical tradition, in particular to the Viennese composers Schonberg, Berg, and Webern. His friends included the conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler, and the musicians Richter, Serkin, Menuhin and Casals. In his autobiography, Kokoschka declared that he “had closer relation-ships with contemporary musicians than with painters or writers”. With his masterly painting The Power of Music (1918-20) Kokoschka entered the debate on musical dissonance, tonality and chromatic harmony, evoking a “music of colors”.

This book focuses on the artists music-inspired works and presents Kokoschka’s favourite theme: the effects of music on the human soul. It also includes never-published-before extracts from the countless correspondences between the artist and his musician friends.

Régine Bonnefoit is an art historian and curator of the Oskar Kokoschka Foundation, Musée Jenisch Vevey.
Ruth Häusler is curator of the manuscript department at the Bibliothèque Centrale in Zurich.