Abstract
At the level of content these works moved from stating the misery of being and human impotence to an expression of compassion and regret over the inevitability of suffering. The inspiration of these ideas, issuing from deeper layers than mere indignation over class injustices, came from writers such as Lev Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoyevsky and the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer.
These authors showed the artists the metaphysical dimension of suffering, flowing from the material essence of human existence