Newfound idol—Egon Schiele

When I first saw Schiele’s works at the Leopold Museum, I immediately fell in love, mostly because of the colour scheme that he used and the twisted body shapes and the expressive lines. There is one of his works (Cardinal and Nun) that I felt connected to Klimt. After reading the descriptions, it validated my suspicion. Later, I did some readings on the Internet and found out that he was the protégé of Klimt.

Schiele was a major figurative painter of the early 20th century. His work is noted for its intensity and its raw se*uality, and the many self-portraits the artist produced, including na#ed self-portraits. The twisted body shapes and the expressive line that characterize Schiele’s paintings and drawings mark the artist as an early exponent of Expressionism. But na#ed aside, I am in it for the art. Below are some of his works that I love.

Apart from female figurative, Egon also painted portraits of himself. His Self Portrait, 1910, was the very first work of his that I saw and immediately fell in love.

Apart from figurative, Schiele also did some landscape paintings.

Egon Schiele (1890 – 1918) died young at the age 0f 28. In the autumn of 1918, the Spanish flu pandemic that claimed more than 20,000,000 lives in Europe reached Vienna. Hi wife, Edith Schiele, who was six months pregnant, succumbed to the disease on 28 October. Schiele died only three days after his wife.