A list of people associated with the development of existentialist art,

Partial Chronological List of People
associated with Existentialist Art, Philosophy and Thinking

Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) 17th-century French philosopher, who rejected the rigorous rationalism of his contemporary René Descartes, asserting, in his Pensées (1670), that a systematic philosophy that presumes to explain God and humanity is a form of pride. His ideas anticipated the major concerns of modern existentialism. Like later existentialist writers, he saw human life in terms of paradoxes: The human self, which combines mind and body, is itself a paradox and contradiction.

Georg Hegel (1770-1831) German philosopher whose principle endeavor was to establish a comprehensive philosophical system that could give a full account of reality itself. His views were widely taught, and his students were highly regarded. His ideas would become the flashpoint of existentialism, particularly as the antithesis to the philosophical concepts of Soren Kierkegaard.

Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) Danish religious philosopher, whose concern with individual existence, choice and commitment profoundly influenced modern theology and philosophy. He applied the term existential to his philosophy because he regarded philosophy as the result of an intensely examined individual life, not as the construction of some monolithic system, particularly the Hegelian model which he vigorously opposed. His early influence was confined to Scandinavia and German-speaking Europe, where his work had a strong impact on Protestant theology and writers such as Franz Kafka. After World War I his work was widely translated, and he became recognized as one of the seminal figures of modern Western culture.

Fyodor Dostoevsky(1821-1881) Russian novelist whose probing fiction into the mind and heart of human actions had a profound influence upon intellectual thinking of modern times. Crime and Punishment (1866), The Idiot (1868-69), The Possessed (1871-72), and The Brothers Karamazov (1879-80) are all considered formative fiction of the existentialist thinking that would develop later.

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) German philosopher, poet, and classical philologist. One of Nietzsche's fundamental contentions was that traditional values (represented primarily by Christianity) had lost their power in the lives of individuals. He expressed this in his proclamation "God is dead." He was convinced that traditional values represented a "slave morality," a morality created by weak and resentful individuals who encouraged such behavior as gentleness and kindness because the behavior served their interest. Nietzsche claimed that new values could be created to replace the traditional ones, and his discussion of the possibility led to his concept of the overman or superman. He maintained that all human behavior is motivated by the will to power. In its positive sense, the will to power is not simply power over others, but the power over oneself that is necessary for creativity.

Edmund Husserl (1859-1938) German philosopher and founder of phenomenology. He contended that the task of the philosopher was to contemplate the essences of things, and that the essence of an object can be arrived at by systematically varying the object in the imagination. Although phenomenology does not assume the existence of anything, Husserl asserted that it was devoted to the description of "things themselves." Ideas:A General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology (1913) is considered his most influential work. His ideas would greatly texture the later thinking of Heidegger and Sartre.

Edvard Munch (1863-1944) Norwegian artist whose brooding and anguished paintings and graphic works, based on personal grief and obsessions, were instrumental in the development of expressionism. Melancholy suffused paintings such as The Bridge, The Scream, and Between Clock and Bed are his most noted works. This melancholic expression was sometimes used to help explain existentialist views about alienation and Nothingness. Munch's considerable body of etchings, lithographs, and woodcuts is now considered a significant force in modern graphic art.

Nikolay Aleksandrovich Berdyayev (1874-1948) Russian philosopher known for his Christian existentialist or personalist views. Berdyayev initially supported the Russian Revolution of 1917, but would eventually become critical of Marxism as a theoretical system without a strong foundation. He considered the ideals of a Christian social system as better grounded and more likely to succeed. He developed the concept of the Ungrund, which he defined as the mysterious primordial freedom from which God emerges. He believed God created humans to be spiritual beings whose freedom and capacity for creativity were the greatest gifts bestowed upon those beings created in "the image of God." Berdyayev was preoccupied with the liberation of personality from all that inhibits free creativity. The Meaning of the Creative Act (1916), The Destiny of Man (1931), Solitude and Society (1934), Spirit and Reality (1937), and Slavery and Freedom (1939) detail much of Berdyayev's Christian existentialist views.

Martin Buber (1878-1965) Jewish religious philosopher. I and Thou (1922), a poetic expression of his religious philosophy is his most widely known work. He is best known for his philosophy of dialogue, a religious existentialism centered on direct, mutual relations (I-Thou), versus indirect, utilitarian relations (I-It). Buber insisted religion means talking to God, not about God. His philosophy of dialogue has had a great influence on religious thinkers of all faiths, including Christian Protestants such as Karl Barth, Emil Brunner, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Paul Tillich.

Franz Kafka (1883-1924) Czech Jewish novelist and short-story writer. The themes of Kafka's works are loneliness, frustration, and oppressive guilt of an individual threatened by anonymous forces beyond his comprehension and control. In literary technique, his work has the qualities of expressionism and surrealism. He is noted for his unique blending of reality and fantasy. His provocative themes and literary style engaged and influenced many existentialists.

Karl Jaspers (1883-1969) German philosopher, one of the originators of existentialism, whose work influenced modern theology and psychiatry as well as philosophy. His philosophy is an effort to explore and describe the margins and limits of experience. He used the term " das Umgreifende" (“the encompassing”) to refer to the ultimate limits of being, the indefinite horizon in which all subjective and objective experience is possible, but which can never be rationally apprehended. In Existenzphilosophie (1938; Philosophy and Existence, 1971), the term " Existenz" designates the indefinable experience of freedom and possibility that constitutes the authentic being of individuals who become aware of the encompassing by confronting such limit-situations as chance, suffering, conflict, guilt, and death. Jaspers also wrote extensively on the threat to human freedom posed by modern science and modern economic and political institutions.

Rudolf Bultmann (1884-1976) One of the greatest New Testament scholars of the 20th century. He was skeptical about gaining reliable historical information about Jesus Christ. He felt that the history of Jesus had been transformed into myth. In developing ideas for demythologizing the New Testament, he felt the Gospel must be translated out of mythical into existentialist language, such as that of Martin Heidegger, and that Christianity would then be understood as a new possibility of existence.

Paul Tillich (1886-1965) German-American philosopher and Lutheran theologian. In his many works, he discussed the alienation of the individual in society and argued that existence is rooted in God as the ground of all being. Tillich believed that Protestant theology may incorporate the critical posture and scientific concepts of contemporary thought without endangering its Christian faith. Thus, he was quick to utilize the insights of depth psychology and existential philosophy in his attempts to renew the relevance of theology for modern secular society.

Karl Barth (1886-1968) Swiss Protestant theologian regarded as one of the most notable Christian thinkers of the 20th century. Not normally associated as a proponent of existentialism, he engaged its ideas and concepts in ways that led some critics to suggest it sometimes bubbled to the surface in his religious thinking.

Emil Brunner (1889-1966) Swiss Protestant theologian ordained in the Swiss Reformed church. He was founder (1948) of the World Council of Churches, an ecumenical body consisting of many Christian denominations. With Swiss theologian, Karl Barth, Brunner was a leader in the post-World War I revolution in Protestant theology that emphasized the Bible as divine revelation, and redemption as that which must be perceived and obtained by man through faith. Brunner differed from Barth in regarding man as retaining a spark of divinity.

Gabriel Marcel (1889-1973) French Roman Catholic existentialist philosopher, dramatist, and critic, who insisted that individuals can only be understood as embodied and involved in specific situations. He was fascinated by reflective contemplations about "mysteries" that yields a kind of truth (philosophical, moral, or religious) that cannot be scientifically verified but is confirmed insofar as it illuminates one's life. Marcel, unlike other existentialists, emphasized participation in community rather than individual isolation. He expressed those ideas not only in books, but in plays, which presented complicated situations in which people find themselves trapped and which lead to isolation and despair, or to a fulfilling relationship with other persons and to God.

Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) German philosopher, who developed existential phenomenology. He was a colleague of Edmund Husserl at the University of Freiburg. In Being and Time (1927), he put forth what he thought was the most essential philosophical (and human) question: What is it, to be? This led to questions about what kind of "being" humans have. This essential question would become the primary sun of the existential solar system.

Man Ray (1890-1976) American painter, sculptor, and filmmaker, as well as a photographer. He was an experimenter with photographic techniques who participated in the Cubist, Dadaist, and Surrealist art movements. Man Ray created a new photographic art, which emphasized chance effects and surprising juxtapositions. Existentialist ideas are sometimes illuminated in these juxtapositions. Man Ray brought his diverse techniques to bear upon one another in the attempt to create "disturbing" objects. His life and art spoke of freedom, pleasure, and the desire for extended awareness and means of expression.

Max Ernst (1891-1976) German painter-poet who was a member of the Dada Movement and a founder of Surrealism. His vivid imagination was constantly provoked by absurdities, and his work is full of disturbing images--often of fantastic birds and animals set in bizarre landscapes--that reflect his fascination with the art of the insane. He is interesting to existentialists for his visual explorations of the irrational.

Reinhold Neibuhr (1892-1971) American Protestant theologian, whose social doctrines profoundly influenced American theological and political thought. He was notable primarily for his examination of the interrelationships between religion, individuals, and modern society. His works indicate an overriding interest in what has been called theological anthropology, a concern with the nature of man as a contact point for religion and society.

M.C. Escher (1898-1972) Dutch artist noted for graphic designs and techniques that defied mathematical and natural laws while visually subscribing to those same laws. Thus, some of his notable designs (e.g., Metamorphose II, Drawing Hands, Reptiles, Liberation, Day and Night, among others) seem to explore existential questions of reality, existence and essence. His art became existential expression. He confessed, "But then there came a moment when it seemed as though scales fell from my eyes. I discovered that technical mastery was no longer my sole aim, for I became gripped by another desire, the existence of which I had never suspected. Ideas came into my mind quite unrelated to graphic art, notions which so fascinated me that I longed to communicate them to other people. This could not be achieved through words, . . ."

Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) French philosopher, dramatist, novelist, and political journalist, who was a leading exponent of existentialism. Sartre's philosophic works combine the phenomenology of the German philosopher Edmund Husserl, the metaphysics of the German philosophers G. W. F. Hegel and Martin Heidegger, and the social theory of Karl Marx into a single view called existentialism. This view, which relates philosophical theory to life, literature, psychology, and political action, stimulated so much popular interest that existentialism became a worldwide movement. In his early philosophic work, Being and Nothingness (1943), Sartre conceived humans as beings who create their own world by rebelling against authority and by accepting personal responsibility for their actions, unaided by society, traditional morality, or religious faith. Distinguishing between human existence and the nonhuman world, he maintained that human existence is characterized by nothingness, that is, by the capacity to negate and rebel. His theory of existential psychoanalysis asserted the inescapable responsibility of all individuals for their own decisions and made the recognition of one's absolute freedom of choice the necessary condition for authentic human existence. His plays and novels express the belief that freedom and acceptance of personal responsibility are the main values in life and that individuals must rely on their creative powers rather than on social or religious authority.

Victor Frankl (1905-1997) Austrian psychotherapist, who developed the concept of logotherapy, the theory that the underlying need of human existence is to find the meaning in life made famous in his best known work Man's Search for Meaning:An Introduction to Logotherapy (1962).

Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908-1961) French existentialist philosopher, whose phenomenological studies of the role of the body in perception and society opened a new field of philosophical investigation. His major work, Phenomenology of Perception (1945), is a detailed study of perception, influenced by Edmund Hesserl's phenomenology ideas and by Gestalt psychology. With Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, Merleau-Ponty founded an influential postwar journal, Les Temps Modernes, in which he wrote brilliant and timely essays on art, film, politics, psychology and religion.

Simone de Beauvoir (1908-86) French feminist (Second Sex (1949) and The Coming of Age (1970)), novelist and advocate of existentialism. Her novels explored the existentialist dilemma of finding meaning in an absurd world. (She Came to Stay (1943), The Blood of Others (1944), and The Mandarins (1954)). Her autobiographical works engage the existentialist thesis that one is responsible for oneself. (Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter (1958) and All Said and Done (1972)). She was a friend and life-long companion of Jean-Paul Sartre.

Albert Camus (1913-1960) French novelist, essayist and dramatist, regarded as one of the finest philosophical writers of modern France. His writings reflect a philosophy of the futility and meaninglessness of human life, at the same time hinting at the hope that exists in all of this. The Stranger (1942), and most of his fiction thereafter, clearly illustrates the thematic influence of existentialism in his stories.