Thomas Bernhards 1985 novel Old Masters is theatrical in style and experimental in form. Old Masters is an exploration of the role of the spectator and spectacle in twentieth-century theater. Bernhard examines the imperfections of art, politics, and religion in postwar Austria, through the protagonist Reger who observes Jacopo Tintorettos White-Bearded Man. Bernhards setting of Old Masters in Viennas Kunsthistorisches Museum and his use of multiple positions of spectatorship challenge the traditional concepts of dramatic performance, narrative voice, and prose writing. Upon examination of the importance of experimental aspects of theater, Friedrich Drrenmatt is useful to Bernhards ideas. Arthur Schopenhauer provides important viewpoints of objective and subjective perspectives, and art theorist Julius Helds ideas strengthen Regers position as spectator-spectacle in a museum and in an entire world. Ultimately Reger suffers from a language damaged by Holocaust guilt, Nazi leaders invention of an abstracted power, and an ambiguous rhetoric, emerging optimistic in a postwar twentieth-century Austria.