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Lot Essay
Bauernhaus auf dem Hügel (Farmhouse on a Hill) is one of an important group of drawings of Tyrolean farmhouses that Schiele made at the height of the First World War while on a journey to the region in the summer of 1917. Often minimal but filled with exquisite detail, the landscapes and studies that Schiele made at this time mark yet another significant formal development in his work. In this daringly empty, but fully completed work, formerly belonging to Schiele's young friend and patron Erich Lederer, the artist's stunning command of line, composition and scale is brought to bear by allowing the emptiness of the blank paper to articulate the mountains and the sky.
Despite his protestations to the contrary Schiele had an extremely easy time in the Austrian army during the First World War. He never saw the front and in January 1917, with the help of Karl Günwald, he was, according to his wishes, reassigned to Vienna where he joined a division of the army known as the Imperial and Royal Military Supply. This was a kind of consumer co-operative run from the Austrian capital by Hans von Rosé and was responsible for supplying officers at the front with food and, more importantly, wine. It was in June 1917 that Grünwald and Schiele became friends when they were sent to the Tyrol and South Tyrol regions on a tour to inspect the many depots and storehouses that the Imperial and Royal Military Supply had there. Knowing of Schiele's talent, von Rosé had charged the artist with keeping a pictorial record of these storehouses and their contents, prompting the artist to create numerous highly detailed drawings and studies of the department's heavily-stocked warehouses and storerooms. Such exercises seems to have prompted in Schiele a fascination with detail that carried over into the extra curricula art works he also often had time to do, especially his drawings and paintings of the buildings, towns, fields and valleys of the Tyrol region.
As his letters home to his wife Edith attest, Schiele's tour of inspection to the Tyrol was something of a sojourn for the artist who found himself with very little army work to do and plenty of time for his own work. A letter written on June 10, possibly immediately before this work was made, is typical. 'Yesterday - Saturday morning - I was on the Isel Mountain, lunch at the station restaurant in Innsbruck and in the afternoon with Grünwald on Lake Lanser by Igels! In the evening to the Hungerburg station. Herr D. is bringing supplies in abundance - hopefully he's bringing rice - he's promised. Up until midday Saturday we still haven't done any work - Love, Egon. - Now I'm going out to draw farmhouses' (Letter to Edith, (misdated June 1) 1917, cited in C.M. Nebehay, Egon Schiele: 1890-1918, Leben, Briefe, Gedichte, Vienna, 1979, no. 1212, p. 422).
One of the finest of Schiele's works from this period, Bauernhaus auf dem Hügel appears almost Japanese in the Zen-like way that Schiele has managed to convey a sense of the whole scene by only rendering the most essential details against an expanse of emptiness. Schiele had, of course, in his early paintings of nature - his anthropomorphic depictions of lone winding trees and plants against a void - been inspired by the compositional techniques of Japanese artists. The awareness that such works had taught him of the increased profundity of a mark left isolated against a blank page and his intuitive understanding of placement, is clearly in evidence here. Schiele rounds off the exquisite minimal design of this work by punctuating it with his cartouche signature in the empty space of the lower right of the watercolour. With this simple and elegant graphic gesture, he has completed the work and, like Japanese artists, used the empty paper as an illusionary space.
Despite his protestations to the contrary Schiele had an extremely easy time in the Austrian army during the First World War. He never saw the front and in January 1917, with the help of Karl Günwald, he was, according to his wishes, reassigned to Vienna where he joined a division of the army known as the Imperial and Royal Military Supply. This was a kind of consumer co-operative run from the Austrian capital by Hans von Rosé and was responsible for supplying officers at the front with food and, more importantly, wine. It was in June 1917 that Grünwald and Schiele became friends when they were sent to the Tyrol and South Tyrol regions on a tour to inspect the many depots and storehouses that the Imperial and Royal Military Supply had there. Knowing of Schiele's talent, von Rosé had charged the artist with keeping a pictorial record of these storehouses and their contents, prompting the artist to create numerous highly detailed drawings and studies of the department's heavily-stocked warehouses and storerooms. Such exercises seems to have prompted in Schiele a fascination with detail that carried over into the extra curricula art works he also often had time to do, especially his drawings and paintings of the buildings, towns, fields and valleys of the Tyrol region.
As his letters home to his wife Edith attest, Schiele's tour of inspection to the Tyrol was something of a sojourn for the artist who found himself with very little army work to do and plenty of time for his own work. A letter written on June 10, possibly immediately before this work was made, is typical. 'Yesterday - Saturday morning - I was on the Isel Mountain, lunch at the station restaurant in Innsbruck and in the afternoon with Grünwald on Lake Lanser by Igels! In the evening to the Hungerburg station. Herr D. is bringing supplies in abundance - hopefully he's bringing rice - he's promised. Up until midday Saturday we still haven't done any work - Love, Egon. - Now I'm going out to draw farmhouses' (Letter to Edith, (misdated June 1) 1917, cited in C.M. Nebehay, Egon Schiele: 1890-1918, Leben, Briefe, Gedichte, Vienna, 1979, no. 1212, p. 422).
One of the finest of Schiele's works from this period, Bauernhaus auf dem Hügel appears almost Japanese in the Zen-like way that Schiele has managed to convey a sense of the whole scene by only rendering the most essential details against an expanse of emptiness. Schiele had, of course, in his early paintings of nature - his anthropomorphic depictions of lone winding trees and plants against a void - been inspired by the compositional techniques of Japanese artists. The awareness that such works had taught him of the increased profundity of a mark left isolated against a blank page and his intuitive understanding of placement, is clearly in evidence here. Schiele rounds off the exquisite minimal design of this work by punctuating it with his cartouche signature in the empty space of the lower right of the watercolour. With this simple and elegant graphic gesture, he has completed the work and, like Japanese artists, used the empty paper as an illusionary space.