Portret van Arthur Schopenhauer 1900

Rogelio de Egusquiza’s portrait of Arthur Schopenhauer is a print, but we do not have a specific date for it. This image encapsulates the late 19th-century fascination with the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. Schopenhauer's philosophy, emphasizing pessimism and the fundamental role of will, resonated with a fin-de-siècle Europe grappling with rapid social change and existential angst. Notice how Egusquiza captures Schopenhauer's intense gaze and somewhat disheveled appearance; this can be read as a deliberate choice to represent the philosopher as a man consumed by his own thoughts, set apart from the bourgeois norms of his time. Egusquiza, a Spanish artist working in a period marked by increasing secularization and the rise of new intellectual movements, engages with the cultural anxieties of his era. The portrait can be seen as part of a broader trend of artists grappling with questions of meaning and purpose in a rapidly changing world. Historians can use sources like exhibition reviews, artist biographies, and philosophical texts to understand the complex interplay between art, ideas, and society in this period.