On The Easel - February 2012

Scene 3 Erwartung Series

The Erwartung Series started in October is nearing completion with just the last and final Scene to complete.  The painting featured here (actually just 'off the easel') is Scene 3, in which the woman encounters what she believes to be a figure dancing in the moonlight.

The text for Erwartung was written by Marie Pappenheim, a young medical student, in response to a commision from Schoenberg.  A clearly disturbing work which has been linked to the psychoanalytical case studies of Freud - those of  'Anna O' and 'Dora' - both studies on female hysteria, and Josef Breuer´s 'Studien uber Hysterie' of 1895.

It is fascinating that the text of Erwartung and 'Dora' both include dreams (hallucinations) about the forest - a place of anxiety and mystery.  The woman in Erwartung upon entering the forest sings "An oppressive air attacks me...Like a storm that waits." Within Scene three and in particular Scene 4 the text clearly mentions bright yellow mushrooms 'rising out of the grass like eyes on stalks' which in Freudian symbology are distinctly phallic, although mine are more like bright eyeballs!

What drew me to the work was the haunting music of Schoenberg, the forest at night, the mystery of the lover, the amnesia and hallucinations, and a path on the road to more expressive and creative art.