Kokoschka, a younger provocateur, rejected this aestheticization. His "new" approach was to remove the gold leaf and expose the flesh in its visceral, trembling reality. In his view, the erotic was not a sanctuary of beauty but a battlefield. This shift marked the birth of Austrian Expressionism. As art historian Claudia Silver has noted, Kokoschka was "the enfant terrible" who refused to flatter the viewer, instead presenting sexuality as a life-or-death struggle.