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Lot Essay
Schiele married Edith Harms in Vienna on 17 June 1915, an occasion apparently hastened by the artist's imminent call-up for service in the Austro-Hungarian army during the Great War. The newlyweds spent a brief honeymoon in Prague, and on 21 June Schiele reported there for his induction. He completed his basic training in Neuhaus, Bohemia, and was at first stationed in Vienna, and thereafter in various towns nearby, which enabled the artist to occasionally work in his studio. Schiele spent time with Edith whenever he could - he was allowed occasional overnight leave, and in one instance was arrested for reporting back to base too late in the morning. He began a well-known full-length oil portrait of Edith wearing a striped dress (K 290, Gemeentemuseum voor Moderne Kunst, The Hague). Following a second medical examination in November 1915, Schiele, on account of his weak heart, was reclassified as unfit for armed, front-line duty, and he spent most of his wartime service doing clerical work - his officers commended his beautiful handwriting - and guarding Russian prisoners-of-war. At the military base in Mühling, near Vienna, his commanding officer had a room set aside for use as a studio, in which Schiele, who was promoted to the rank of corporal in June 1916, drew portraits of his fellow soldiers, officers and Russian prisoners.
Because of the limited opportunities he had in which to work, Schiele's output of drawings sharply decreased in 1916 - Kallir's catalogue lists only 58 works of various subjects done in that year, compared to double that number in the previous year, and more than two hundred works on paper in 1914. Indeed, when Schiele assembled new material for an exhibition at the Galerie Guido Arnot in November 1916, he found that he had available only eight new drawings and the same number of paintings. Arnot cancelled the show, and Schiele had to recall the invitations that he had sent out.
Fewer than a third of the 1916 drawings are of female subjects, which is not surprising, in light of the artist's all-male environment, and there are only a handful of nudes. Edith appears to have been his model in all of the poses in which the model is nude or semi-clad. Kallir has noted that 'Edith, it is said, jealously forbade her husband to work from professional models... Edith also insited that Egon disguised her face in drawings of erotic poses: a measure born in part of bourgeois prudery, and in part of understandable embarrassment, since she (like Wally before her [Valerie Neuzil, the artist's previous companion]) was frequently required to deliver the finished pictures to collectors' (in cat rais., op. cit., p. 202). In the present drawing she looks upward, so that the viewer sees the underside of her nose and chin, and in other works her head is turned downward or to one side, so that she is unrecognisable. Schiele, however, has here turned this restriction into a startlingly novel and effective compositional device. The backward tilt of the head calls attention to the low point-of-view the artist has taken, which in itself hints at an erotic scenario. There is a pronounced upward movement in the pose, which takes the form of a classic pyramidal composition, wide at the base and narrow above, that leads the viewer's eye from bottom to top. This rising movement is echoed in the model's activity as she prepares to pull her blouse over her head.
In the years 1915-1916 Schiele set the stage for the final flowering of his artistic activity, recognition and success, which would commence in January 1917, when the artist was transferred to duties in Vienna, enabling him to more fully resume his work. This last period ended with Schiele's tragically early death from influenza in October 1918, only several days after the death of his wife Edith, who was pregnant with their first child. Kallir has written, 'Over the course of 1915, the increasingly naturalistic line will hew ever closer to the shape of the object, as the element of graphic stylisation progressively recedes...Essentially, 1916 witnesses a consolidation of the tendencies nascent in the previous year. The perfection of a line both spontaneous and precise results in drawings that zero in on their subjects with intense accuracy' (ibid., pp. 546 and 560).
Because of the limited opportunities he had in which to work, Schiele's output of drawings sharply decreased in 1916 - Kallir's catalogue lists only 58 works of various subjects done in that year, compared to double that number in the previous year, and more than two hundred works on paper in 1914. Indeed, when Schiele assembled new material for an exhibition at the Galerie Guido Arnot in November 1916, he found that he had available only eight new drawings and the same number of paintings. Arnot cancelled the show, and Schiele had to recall the invitations that he had sent out.
Fewer than a third of the 1916 drawings are of female subjects, which is not surprising, in light of the artist's all-male environment, and there are only a handful of nudes. Edith appears to have been his model in all of the poses in which the model is nude or semi-clad. Kallir has noted that 'Edith, it is said, jealously forbade her husband to work from professional models... Edith also insited that Egon disguised her face in drawings of erotic poses: a measure born in part of bourgeois prudery, and in part of understandable embarrassment, since she (like Wally before her [Valerie Neuzil, the artist's previous companion]) was frequently required to deliver the finished pictures to collectors' (in cat rais., op. cit., p. 202). In the present drawing she looks upward, so that the viewer sees the underside of her nose and chin, and in other works her head is turned downward or to one side, so that she is unrecognisable. Schiele, however, has here turned this restriction into a startlingly novel and effective compositional device. The backward tilt of the head calls attention to the low point-of-view the artist has taken, which in itself hints at an erotic scenario. There is a pronounced upward movement in the pose, which takes the form of a classic pyramidal composition, wide at the base and narrow above, that leads the viewer's eye from bottom to top. This rising movement is echoed in the model's activity as she prepares to pull her blouse over her head.
In the years 1915-1916 Schiele set the stage for the final flowering of his artistic activity, recognition and success, which would commence in January 1917, when the artist was transferred to duties in Vienna, enabling him to more fully resume his work. This last period ended with Schiele's tragically early death from influenza in October 1918, only several days after the death of his wife Edith, who was pregnant with their first child. Kallir has written, 'Over the course of 1915, the increasingly naturalistic line will hew ever closer to the shape of the object, as the element of graphic stylisation progressively recedes...Essentially, 1916 witnesses a consolidation of the tendencies nascent in the previous year. The perfection of a line both spontaneous and precise results in drawings that zero in on their subjects with intense accuracy' (ibid., pp. 546 and 560).