.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
“His artistry as a draughtsman was phenomenal. The assurance of his hand was almost infallible. When he drew, he usually sat on a low stool, the drawing board and sheet on his knees, his right hand (with which he did the drawing) resting on the board. But I also saw him drawing differently, standing in front of the model, his right foot on a low stool. Then he rested the board on his right knee and held it at the top with his left hand, and his drawing hand unsupported placed his pencil on the sheet and drew his lines from the shoulder, as it were. And everything was exactly right. If he happened to get something wrong, which was very rare, he threw the sheet away; he never used an eraser. Schiele only drew from nature”. (O. Benesch, Mein Weg mit Egon Schiele, New York, 1965, p. 25).
Drawn in the last year of his prematurely truncated life, the present nude is a strong example of Egon Schiele's distinctive psychological astuteness and mastery of the line. The unnamed model, bearing some resemblance to his wife Edith, sits cross-legged with her right arm elevated at an angle, a recurring gesture in the artist's subtly choreographic portraits, as she looks out into the distance. Extracted from any spatiotemporal context, Schiele uses her anatomy to create the sole relevant framework from which she is to be considered: her bare self.
His rendering of the soft angles of her body, emphasizing some areas over others, balancing seen and unseen, creates an intrigue that toes the line between provocation and modesty, intentional and accidental—a tension often detectable in successful art, as well as seduction. Indeed, the sitter’s vulnerable yet imposing quality is mirrored in the artist's exclusive use of Conté crayon to immortalize her on the sheet. Through this balance between matter and subject, he harmoniously brings forth the ineffable characteristics of attraction. The sharp almond-shaped eyes, faint slouch in her shoulders and slightly contorted silhouette give the viewer a clear sense of the sitter's nature and the artist's impression of her. Indeed, Schiele’s genius lies in his ability to capture the subtle ways in which physical traits correspond to inner ones and to accentuate this intersection beautifully.
While maintaining their poignancy, later drawings such as the present work bear a rounder line than the earlier ones, which were thinly drawn and unequivocally geometric, their febrile figures always uneasy. Sitzender weiblicher Akt von vorn displays the stylistic shift during which Schiele evolved from the palpable angst of his early twenties towards more confidence and maturity. Referring to a series of nude portraits from this time in her online catalogue raisonné, Jane Kallir wrote that “The elaborate costume dramas enacted earlier (...) were here replaced by a systematic concentration on the nude as an emblem of quintessential humanity. A repertory of simplified, standardized poses, evolved since 1913-1914—standing, reclining, floating and squatting—served to unify the component images." 1918 was also the year that the artist produced the most portraits of his career since 1910, and the repeated proximity to the psyche of his various subjects sharpened his already strong intuition during this period, culminating in the brilliant, steady hand on display here.
Drawn in the last year of his prematurely truncated life, the present nude is a strong example of Egon Schiele's distinctive psychological astuteness and mastery of the line. The unnamed model, bearing some resemblance to his wife Edith, sits cross-legged with her right arm elevated at an angle, a recurring gesture in the artist's subtly choreographic portraits, as she looks out into the distance. Extracted from any spatiotemporal context, Schiele uses her anatomy to create the sole relevant framework from which she is to be considered: her bare self.
His rendering of the soft angles of her body, emphasizing some areas over others, balancing seen and unseen, creates an intrigue that toes the line between provocation and modesty, intentional and accidental—a tension often detectable in successful art, as well as seduction. Indeed, the sitter’s vulnerable yet imposing quality is mirrored in the artist's exclusive use of Conté crayon to immortalize her on the sheet. Through this balance between matter and subject, he harmoniously brings forth the ineffable characteristics of attraction. The sharp almond-shaped eyes, faint slouch in her shoulders and slightly contorted silhouette give the viewer a clear sense of the sitter's nature and the artist's impression of her. Indeed, Schiele’s genius lies in his ability to capture the subtle ways in which physical traits correspond to inner ones and to accentuate this intersection beautifully.
While maintaining their poignancy, later drawings such as the present work bear a rounder line than the earlier ones, which were thinly drawn and unequivocally geometric, their febrile figures always uneasy. Sitzender weiblicher Akt von vorn displays the stylistic shift during which Schiele evolved from the palpable angst of his early twenties towards more confidence and maturity. Referring to a series of nude portraits from this time in her online catalogue raisonné, Jane Kallir wrote that “The elaborate costume dramas enacted earlier (...) were here replaced by a systematic concentration on the nude as an emblem of quintessential humanity. A repertory of simplified, standardized poses, evolved since 1913-1914—standing, reclining, floating and squatting—served to unify the component images." 1918 was also the year that the artist produced the most portraits of his career since 1910, and the repeated proximity to the psyche of his various subjects sharpened his already strong intuition during this period, culminating in the brilliant, steady hand on display here.