Existentialism (trope)

Wikipedia:

Existentialism is a term applied to the work of certain late 19th- and 20th-century European philosophers who, despite profound doctrinal differences, shared the belief that philosophical thinking begins with the human subject—not merely the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual. While the supreme value of existentialist thought is commonly acknowledged to be freedom, its primary virtue is authenticity. In the view of the existentialist, the individual's starting point is characterized by what has been called "the existential attitude", or a sense of disorientation and confusion in the face of an apparently meaningless or absurd world. Many existentialists have also regarded traditional systematic or academic philosophies, in both style and content, as too abstract and remote from concrete human experience.

All the Tropes:

A. Philospher felt enraged! The art infront of him did not have enough duende! Mr. Philospher wanted to feel inspired, and how could he with this fudging pathetic and poor excuse for art? How could a world where something like this be considered worth so much? He felt sad, confused, angry, disoriented with the apparent meaningless of this absurd world. No amount of traditional writing and discussion could clearly convey its awfulness. There is only one reasonable course of action. Form a new philosophy!

Wikipedia:

He proposed that each individual—not society or religion—is solely responsible for giving meaning to life and living it passionately and sincerely ("authentically"). Existentialism became popular in the years following World War II.

All the Tropes:

A. Philosopher is the personification of philosophers, and the art is World War II. Possibly, the bad artist might be society, or religion. Probably religion.

Literature

 * Albert Camus's The Stranger is a famous novel about the absurd and existentialism, although Camus rejected the second term.
 * Fyodor Dostoevsky's Notes From Underground is considered to be one of the first literary works related to the philosophy.
 * Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre, which he considers one of his finest works, expands upon the concept of consciousness and its effect on the main character. It also served as a giant call-out to Humanism.

Real Life

 * Friedrich Nietzsche's work massively influenced the philosophy.
 * Jean-Paul Sartre was one of its key figures.