Self-Portrait

Painting “was to me the same as making music. It was to me a way of expressing myself, of presenting emotions, ideas, and other feelings; and this is perhaps the way to understand these paintings – or not to understand them. They would probably have suffered the same fate as I have suffered; they would have been attacked and scolded and I don’t know what else I should say: What I mean, the same would happen to them what happened to my music. This, I mean, would be understood or not understood. In fact, as I said, I expressed myself in the same manner as I did it in music. I never was very capable of expressing my feelings or emotions in words. I don’t know whether this is the cause why I did it in music and also why I did it in painting. Or vice versa: That I had this way as an outlet. I could renounce expressing something in words.” (Arnold Schönberg, Museum Talk on Painting, 1949)