Among the foremost members of the Frankfurt School, Theodor Adorno launched a tirade against the modern world. With an arsenal of unsupported assertions strung together without obvious connecting elements, Adorno set out to critique what he called the "phantasmagoria" of commodity consumption. A c

Angry, Dark, Depressive, Dystopic, Frankfurt school, Intense, Marxism/ideology critique, Severe

When Vladek Spiegelman took his son Arthur aside one day to teach him about the Holocaust, it was more than a history lesson; it was a survival lesson. He drew diagrams of the shelter in which he had hidden his family -- not pictures, but simple, urgent drawings that mapped out, in the father's mind,

Anxiety, Avant comic art, Dark, Dramatic, Egalitarian, Expansive

Probably the most lyrical and emotional of the German Expressionists, Kathe Kollwitz explored the austere themes of suffering and death in her poignant prints and compelling sculptures. Born to parents with strong Socialist beliefs, Kollwitz later married a doctor but settled in one of the poorest

Dark, Death, Dense, Dramatic, Feminist, German expressionism, Gritty, Self-reflection

Shortly after arriving in Vienna to study at the Academy of Art, the 17-year-old Egon Schiele encountered the 45-year-old Gustav Klimt, then the leading figure in Austrian Art Nouveau and the Vienna avant-garde. The older painter would become Schiele's lifelong friend and mentor; his affect on Schiel

Agitated, Austrian expressionism, Dark, Erotic, Profane, Severe