Karl Kraus, Oskar Kokoschka and 'The Prometheus triptych'
An essay examining the political content of Oskar Kokoschka's painting The Prometheus triptych, completed in 1950. The author identifies the social and political forces represented in the painting, as well as the contemporary figures personifying these forces, and their role in the artist's life. He analyzes Kokoschka's development of an appropriate visual language for expressing his condemnation of the depicted political developments, and reveals how the works of the writer Karl Kraus (1874–1936)—particularly his apocalyptic First World War drama Die letzten Tage der Menschheit—provide the key to unlocking the political nature of the triptych's central panel. This central panel is a dedicated representation of Die letzten Tage der Menschheit's key theme of the triumph of dynamic and self-seeking bourgeois groups over a European civilization fatally weakened by the corruption of Judaeo-Christian morality.