Favourite Paintings: Egon Shiele
I first discovered the Austrian artist, Egon Schiele, when I took a gander into the Leopold Museum in Vienna a few years ago and found an exhibition of his work (by the way, this is a permanent exhibition and if you happen to be in Vienna, I SERIOUSLY recommend making a visit here!). I had never really heard of Schiele before, except that I knew he was a student and descendant from the studio of Gustav Klimt, so I thought the chances were pretty good that I would find his work interesting. I didn't expect to fall so in love with his paintings and his stories!
Just walking into the exhibition is a breathtaking experience in itself because his work is so striking. This is an artist, born in 1890 and died in 1918, who defied all conventions - not only through his paintings, which created huge controversy in the 'academic and scholarly' art circles in Vienna, but also in his bohemian lifestyle and personal life. Some of his nudes were considered pornographic, he ran all over the place with his mistresses, even spent some time in prison for inappropriate behaviour around children. Each of his paintings shows us something completely different; they could be allegories of life, twisted perceptions of people and bodies, certain aspects of characters and nature. Their raw and organic nature force you to confront their ideas straight on, they can be brutal and tough, but I also find them amazingly humbling. One thing for sure is that there is always a lot to look at in each painting, and I almost feel like sometimes Schiele challenges us to see past his distortions and obstructions, to find the real story behind the painting.
It was so hard to choose just one of Schiele's paintings to showcase in this blog post, as they are all so different, but I have decided on one that probably made the biggest impression on me when I first visited the exhibition in Vienna. It's title is 'Levitation (The Blind III)', painted in 1915.
This is essentially a portrait of a human being who is in between life and death; how interesting that instead of just drawing one sick-looking character, as we might normally see of this particular situation, Schiele has painted him as two different beings - one who is alive and one who is dead. The being who is alive has his feet planted firmly on the earth while the being who is dead is floating up and away from the world, he has lost connection to life. The facial features are also hugely expressive; the alive being shows big bright eyes - are they bright with life or wide with the terror of dying? The deceased being has a green face and closing eyes. The background landscape is beautiful and complicated; maybe it represents the world and the life that this being is leaving behind, so busy with it's own many stories and daily struggles. Actually, although the landscape has so much going on, the only thing really 'happening', the focus of our attention in the painting is the death of this man.
Perhaps Schiele is asking the question, 'what happens when we die'? Do we just float away leaving the world behind us? Should we be frightened? Should we cling to life for as long as possible? This painting was finished just three years before Schiele's death, when World War 1 was having a huge impact on his life. Perhaps then this is a personal cry from Schiele, a terror about his own death and the Spanish flu that would claim him and so many others.
I thought I would include some other examples here of Schiele's work, to give more of an idea of what he was all about. Whether you like them or not, hopefully we could agree that their questions and challenges are important and really worth considering. Looking at his paintings never gets boring, and that is probably what I like most about him.
