Twenty-first International Conference on Environmental, Cultural, Economic & Social Sustainability

Abstract

Black metal, a genre connecting old-Norse tradition with radical artistic expression and aspiration towards breaking the social and musical taboo in culture, stands in between two seemingly different visual poles. Because of these aesthetic connotations, the main focus of the article is the study of visual analogies between works of Dahl, Kittelsen and the expressionists and their discursive re-work and usage by black metal artists. Following the development of Scandinavian art, especially the national romanticism, as well as expressionism in literature, art and film, the article analyses the types and sources of theoretical correlation between artistic tradition in Scandinavia and modern extreme metal music in these areas. Based on concepts from philosophy, history of art, media and literature studies, the article examines the importance of artistic manifestos of the epochs, juxtaposed with main guidelines of black metal (considered a social and artistic movement), and the matter, in which the genre re-claimed expressionist and romantic art in both visual and discursive (i.e. through ekphrasis) way. The important part of the study is the exploration of references to symbolism, Gothic novel and horror literature, as well as some futuristic postulates (as stated in Marinetti’s manifesto) in both expressionism and black metal. That, in connection with Nietzsche’s theories exploited in Munch’s work and extreme metal, realizes the article’s aim to categorize and draw an outline of an interdisciplinary art and music theories within the genre’s stylistic and ideologic development.