Image talk:Arnold Schoenberg 'The Red Look' - Kandinsky 1910.jpg

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This portrait is misattributed. The painting is not one of Arnold Schoenberg by Kandinsky, but a portrait BY Schoenberg (some say a self-portrait, although this was not, I believe, explicitly confirmed by Schoenberg himself). As far as I am familiar, the painting has absolutely no connection with Kandinsky in the slightest, aside from that Schoenberg and Kandinsky knew and, to some extent, inspired each other. Additionally, the work is not in the 'Tvar Gallery', as stated, but the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus (Inv. no. FH 139) in München. Furthermore, the generally-used English translation of the German title (Der rote Blick) is 'The Red Gaze' rather than 'The Red Look'. USC, where Schoenberg once taught, has an online catalogue of Schoenberg's paintings, including a very detailed entry for this one at http://www.usc.edu/libraries/archives/schoenberg/painting/abstracthtms/ritter75.htm. http://www.usc.edu/libraries/archives/schoenberg/painting/abstractjpgs/ritt075b.jpg is a marvelously high-resolution scan of this painting which, aside from a generally much clearer view of the painting in general, also reveals Schoenberg's very clear signature on the right-hand side of the painting. I propose that the literature accompanying this art be changed accordingly, and the high-resolution scan used to replace the one currently in use.

Also, I have already changed the attribution on what is apparently the only use of this portrait in Wikipedia to reflect the correct artist. However, this use (to illustrate the article on Schoenberg's opera Moses und Aron) seems to me completely pointless, as the painting has no bearing on the work, the work has no bearing on the painting, and the two of them were created some twenty years apart. If it is to illustrate a work by Schoenberg, it would be more purposeful being attached to one more contemporaneous with itself, such as his first opera, Erwartung, from 1909, although even this would be stretching it somewhat, despite a similarity of Expressionistic techinques in both works. I then further propose that the painting's most functional use would be as an illustration for the brief section on Schoenberg's extramusical activities (including painting) contained within his biography, and which is currently bereft of any such useful visual examples, aside from a sketch made by a Wikipedia user named Edward Drantler, the use of which, in its current position (i.e., next to a discussion of Schoenberg as painter) is, I feel, rather misleading, as it seems to imply that Schoenberg either drew it himself, or had some bearing on its drawing.

—Marc-David Jacobs