An Early Expressionist Masterpiece Oskar Kokoschka's Children Playing from 1909

Abstract

The writer discusses Oskar Kokoschka's early Expressionist masterpiece Children Playing in the Wilhelm Lehmbruck Museum, Duisburg, Germany. The writer deals with 1909 work, which portrays the daughter and son of the publisher Richard Stein, in three sections. In the first second, she considers Kokoschka's decision to display the children as participants in a love scene, analyzes his early portrayals of children and his memory of meeting the Stein children, and draws a link between Kokoschka's psychological approach to children and a new public awareness of childhood sexuality. In the second section, she discusses Kokoschka's perception of the background as a symbolic configuration that protects the children and promotes an erotic theme. She traces the source of the children's disharmonious body language and their symbolic coloring. In the third part, she analyzes Kokoschka's use of biographical material and various visual and literary sources. In a brief conclusion, she addresses the question of what makes the work an early Expressionist masterpiece.