Egon Schiele

Egon Schiele the Austrian painter and draughtsman (1890-1918), a leading figure of Viennese Expressionism whose searing line and unflinching self-scrutiny produced some of the most provocative figures and portraits in modern art. He died at twenty-eight, yet left a body of work of startling originality and intensity.

Youth and the Academy

Egon Schiele was born in 1890 at Tulln, near Vienna, the son of a stationmaster. His father died when Egon was fifteen, and the boy was placed in the care of a guardian who could not understand his artistic ambitions. He was drawn to drawing from childhood and showed a precocious talent that set him apart from his schoolfellows.

In 1906 he entered the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, but he found its methods stifling and its elder professors unsympathetic. He left after a few years and sought out Gustav Klimt, the leading painter of the Austrian Secession, who recognised his gifts, encouraged him, and helped him find patrons and models.

Klimt's influence is visible in Schiele's early decorative works, yet the younger artist soon moved away from Klimt's ornamental richness toward a sharper, more angular and more exposed manner. His study of the human figure and his interest in psychology were the foundation of his rapid development.

Vienna Secession and Early Maturity

Schiele became a central figure in the artistic life of Vienna, participating in the exhibitions of the Vienna Art Show and the Secession circle. He made contact with other young artists and with the writers and musicians of the city, and he began to exhibit to increasing notice, though also to increasing controversy.

His portraits and self-portraits of these years are extraordinary for their psychological penetration. He depicts his subjects gaunt and naked in their gaze, their hands and bodies posed in expressive contortions, as if to expose an inner state that convention would hide. He often painted himself, seeing self-portraiture as a laboratory for the emotion he wished to convey.

His drawing technique matured rapidly, and he came to rely on the restless, nervous contour of the line, applied in long sinuous strokes and often combined with broad areas of muted or brilliant colour. The white of the paper is left exposed to serve as light, lending the figures a raw, unfinished energy.

Controversy and Krumau

In 1911 Schiele met a young woman, Walburga Neuzil, known as Wally, who became his companion and favourite model, and the pair moved to the small town of Krumau, the birthplace of his mother, in search of a simpler life. His unconventional domestic arrangements and the frankness of his figure drawings provoked the disapproval of the local community.

The couple then settled at Neulengbach, where Schiele's open house and the presence of young models led to his arrest in 1912 on a charge related to the alleged abduction of a minor. The most serious accusation was eventually dismissed, but he was convicted on a minor count and briefly imprisoned, and one of his drawings was burnt by the court.

The experience intensified the sense of persecution and defiance that runs through his work, and it also changed his subject matter, as he turned increasingly to allegorical and religious themes alongside the portraits and the drawn figures. The imprisonment is recorded in a powerful group of watercolours made during his confinement.

Technique, Eroticism and Self-Portraiture

Schiele's art is founded on the line. He drew with an incisive, almost electric contour, and he built his figures from those contours rather than from modelling, so that forms appear flattened and pressed against the surface of the sheet. The pose of a hand or the angle of a hip is chosen for expressive rather than descriptive effect.

He used watercolour and gouache with great subtlety, staining the paper and allowing the ground to show through, and he combined areas of brilliant red, green and blue with quieter tones to produce a heightened colouristic effect. His mature oil paintings, though fewer, are ambitious compositions in which the drawn figure and the painted ground interact.

His erotic drawings, often of women in candid poses and dress, were among the most controversial works of the period and continue to arouse debate. They were made as part of a larger project of exposing the truth of the body and of desire, and they share with the portraits a refusal of idealisation. He posed himself in many moods, by turns defiant, tender and anguished.

Marriage, Death and Lasting Influence

In 1915 Schiele married Edith Harms, the daughter of a respectable family, in a ceremony that coincided with his call-up for military service. He spent the war in various administrative and guard duties and was able to continue painting. Wally, who had remained devoted to him, was not included in his new life, a parting that has struck many commentators as cruel and that foreshadows the tragedies to come.

In 1918 his work received the recognition that had long been building, with a triumphant exhibition in Vienna, and he seemed poised for a great career. That autumn the influenza pandemic reached the city. Edith, pregnant, died in October, and Schiele, who had contracted the disease while attending her, died three days later. He was twenty-eight.

His achievement in so short a life was remarkable. In fewer than fifteen years he produced hundreds of drawings, watercolours and paintings that rank with the most searching images of the human condition in the modern age. His line influenced later Austrian and German artists, and his uncompromising honesty has made him a central reference for figurative painters who seek to convey feeling through the drawn body.

See also

• Gustav Klimt
• Vienna Secession
• Expressionism
• Austrian art