拍品專文
In early 1912, Schiele was living in a gardenhouse in the small Austrian town of Neulengbach. His companion and model was Valerie (Wally) Neuzil, a red-headed Viennese whom Gustav Klimt had introduced to him. Wally was the subject of numerous erotic works between 1911 and 1914, for which the artist had achieved increasing notoriety, as well as more personal and sensitive portraits which display the tender side of the artist's fervent sensuality. Wally, Schiele's first mistress, had a moderating effect on the once solitary artist, and in the splendid isolation of Neulengbach Schiele produced some of his most lyrical portraits and landscapes to date.
This interlude came to an end on April 13, 1912, when local authorities, having observed the illicit relationship at the house and responding to complaints that the artist had asked neighbors' children to pose for him, arrested Schiele on charges of "immorality" and "seduction". They confiscated his drawings and threw him in jail, where he remained for 24 days until his court trial, at which he was fined and one of his drawings burnt by the judge in symbolic condemnation. He wrote in his diary the day after his release:
For 24 days I was under arrest! Twenty-four days or five hundred and seventy-six hours! An eternity!
The investigation ran its wretched course. But I have miserably borne unspeakable things. I am terribly punished without punishment.
At the hearing one of the confiscated drawings, the one that had hung in my bedroom, was solemnly burned over a candle flame by the judge in his robes! Autodafé! Savonarola! Inquisition! Middle Ages! Castration, hypocrisy! Go then to the museums and cut up the greatest works of art into little pieces. He who denies sex is a filthy person who smears in the lowest way his own parents who have begotten him.
"How anyone who has not suffered as I, will have to feel ashamed before me from now on!" (E. Schiele, in A. Comini, op. cit., p. 105)
During his confinement Schiele painted at least thirteen watercolors and completed one drawing. At first he depicted his prison surroundings and objects in his cell. Finally, reacting desperately to his persecution and isolation he painted four self-portraits, whose visionary and tortured qualities have made them emblematic of the art of the prisoner in this century, and seem to prefigure the mass brutalization of entire peoples which took place in Europe several decades later.
The present watercolor was painted in the same year, very likely after his confinement, and while it does not approach the same extreme of expression as the prison self-portraits, it shares several of their stylistic qualities. Most notable are the predominantly blue and reddish-brown tonality, and the fluid, almost Rodinesque wash of pigment over the drawing. Indeed, the influence of Rodin may even extend to the pose itself. Erwin Mitsch has observed the similarity to the figure in Rodin's 1882 sculpture Femme accroupie:
The influence of this sculpture on Schiele was first suggested by Werner Hofmann with reference to the female figure in the 1914 haunting Blind Mother . . . Despite some differences in the position of the head, for example, which is supported on the knee and shoulder, or in the left arm - Rodin's sculpture could already have influenced the self-portrait of 1912. A 1914 drawing, which is close to an etching of the same year titled Grief (Kallir Druckgraphik, no. 7) is similarly a variation on this model... (E. Mitsch, op. cit., p. 80)
In contrast to the prison self-portraits, Schiele in Hockender (Selbstbildnis) gives the appearance of an attitude that is both vulnerable but defiant; while the pose may seem cramped and self-defensive, it also gives the impression of immense coiled energy ready to spring outward.
This interlude came to an end on April 13, 1912, when local authorities, having observed the illicit relationship at the house and responding to complaints that the artist had asked neighbors' children to pose for him, arrested Schiele on charges of "immorality" and "seduction". They confiscated his drawings and threw him in jail, where he remained for 24 days until his court trial, at which he was fined and one of his drawings burnt by the judge in symbolic condemnation. He wrote in his diary the day after his release:
For 24 days I was under arrest! Twenty-four days or five hundred and seventy-six hours! An eternity!
The investigation ran its wretched course. But I have miserably borne unspeakable things. I am terribly punished without punishment.
At the hearing one of the confiscated drawings, the one that had hung in my bedroom, was solemnly burned over a candle flame by the judge in his robes! Autodafé! Savonarola! Inquisition! Middle Ages! Castration, hypocrisy! Go then to the museums and cut up the greatest works of art into little pieces. He who denies sex is a filthy person who smears in the lowest way his own parents who have begotten him.
"How anyone who has not suffered as I, will have to feel ashamed before me from now on!" (E. Schiele, in A. Comini, op. cit., p. 105)
During his confinement Schiele painted at least thirteen watercolors and completed one drawing. At first he depicted his prison surroundings and objects in his cell. Finally, reacting desperately to his persecution and isolation he painted four self-portraits, whose visionary and tortured qualities have made them emblematic of the art of the prisoner in this century, and seem to prefigure the mass brutalization of entire peoples which took place in Europe several decades later.
The present watercolor was painted in the same year, very likely after his confinement, and while it does not approach the same extreme of expression as the prison self-portraits, it shares several of their stylistic qualities. Most notable are the predominantly blue and reddish-brown tonality, and the fluid, almost Rodinesque wash of pigment over the drawing. Indeed, the influence of Rodin may even extend to the pose itself. Erwin Mitsch has observed the similarity to the figure in Rodin's 1882 sculpture Femme accroupie:
The influence of this sculpture on Schiele was first suggested by Werner Hofmann with reference to the female figure in the 1914 haunting Blind Mother . . . Despite some differences in the position of the head, for example, which is supported on the knee and shoulder, or in the left arm - Rodin's sculpture could already have influenced the self-portrait of 1912. A 1914 drawing, which is close to an etching of the same year titled Grief (Kallir Druckgraphik, no. 7) is similarly a variation on this model... (E. Mitsch, op. cit., p. 80)
In contrast to the prison self-portraits, Schiele in Hockender (Selbstbildnis) gives the appearance of an attitude that is both vulnerable but defiant; while the pose may seem cramped and self-defensive, it also gives the impression of immense coiled energy ready to spring outward.