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拍品專文
'I want to start anew' Egon Schiele wrote to his friend Anton Pescka on his return to Vienna in January 1917. 'It seems to me that until now I have just been preparing the tools' (Letter to Anton Pescka, January 1917, cited in C.M. Nebehay (ed.), Egon Schiele (1890-1918): Leben, Briefe, Gedichte, Vienna, 1979, no. 1170). Kniender weiblicher Halbakt (Kneeling female half-nude) is an exquisite and accomplished gouache from 1917 that reflects the mastery of both subject and medium that Schiele had attained by this time and the new direction he was now taking with his art.
Kniender weiblicher Halbakt is one of a small group of exceptional female nudes that Schiele painted in 1917 in which the overt eroticism of his earlier work and the sharp trembling energy of his former needle-like line has been toned down in favour of a more objective concentration on the human figure as a complex but expressive force of nature. The way in which, in this gouache, the rounded, almost sculptural form of the figure bends awkwardly in an extraordinarily expressive pose so that it both contrasts with and articulates the emptiness of the blank page is not only symptomatic of Schiele's new work but also appears to be the artist's central concern.
Kniender weiblicher Halbakt belongs to a unique group of masterful drawings from this period in which the pictorial contrast between the void of the page and the earthy, voluminous and, for Schiele, surprisingly material forms of the nude figure is of paramount importance. Among these gouaches are a number of works depicting clearly horizontal poses on which Schiele has placed his monogrammatic signature in such a way as to suggest that the work be read vertically. This somewhat unorthodox decision by the artist to deny the order of nature and the pull of gravity on his figures probably reflects the fact that it was not simple naturalism that Schiele sought from these nudes. It was the use of the female form as a vehicle by which to express a wider and more abstract understanding of nature as a vital and existential phenomenon, as an animate and procreative presence. Certainly, the rhythm of outline, painterly form and empty unpainted void is more dramatic when these 'rotated' works are read in the way the artist intended. The blank space of the picture seems to play as important a role as the carefully modelled painted forms.
As with his paintings of trees and plants set against a vast empty background, what appears to interest Schiele in Kniender weiblicher Halbakt - which, with its diagonal pose has no need of the 'rotation' he bestowed on other works - is the stark contrast between the living, breathing, animate nature of the semi-naked form and the bleak emptiness of the background. The warm tones of the skin, flushed cheeks, gentle articulation of the bones under the skin and the clear but softly moulded outlines of her form, all combine to convey a powerful sense of an isolated living human presence. Schiele's sublime command over his materials now requires no help from the expressive gesture, distortion, forced emphasis or white-painted highlights that distinguished the fervour of his earlier work. Here, set against an empty paper background, Schiele's soft crayon outline and assured and confident modelling magically bring to life the figure of a woman who seems born both to and from the page within which she is confined.
This gouache is no individualised portrait however, in the way, for example, that many of Schiele's earlier drawings of nudes had been. It is strictly the living nature of the human form that Schiele appears interested in here, not the individuality or inner psychology of the figure that intrigues as it was, for example, in so many of his portraits of 1910 and 1911. The model Schiele used for this work is unknown. It is probably a professional model whom Schiele is known to have used as the source for several drawings and one or two major paintings during the first part of 1917. By the summer, Schiele's financial situation had radically transformed and he was able for the first time to set up a harem of models in his studio in the manner of his mentor Gustav Klimt. Preceding this, in the first part of the year, Schiele seems to have repeatedly used a lone professional model or, more often than not, his wife Edith and his sister-in-law Adele Harms. Edith and Adele appear frequently in his work of 1917, and Adele is another possible source for this work. Schiele often obscured or intermingled the features of the two sisters largely for the sake of his wife's modesty. Edith Schiele was at once both jealous of her husband's models and naturally shy. While she therefore preferred to sit for her husband herself, she had no desire to be recognised as the subject of his pictures, especially when it was often given to her to deliver his works to their respective buyers and patrons. Adele Harms, Edith's sister, who later claimed to be having an affair with Schiele at this time, though she was a notoriously unreliable witness to events and also made claims of being 'really a nun'!, was the darker-haired of the two sisters and more closely resembles the figure in Kniender weiblicher Halbakt. It is possible, but nonetheless unlikely, that she is the source that Schiele used for what in the end is essentially a generic female figure.
Kniender weiblicher Halbakt belongs to a series of drawings of a half-nude woman in her underclothes that stands amongst the finest of his works executed in 1917 and are a match for works of any date. With maturity, Schiele's art had gained an assured mastery and command often at the expense of much of the neurotic fervour and erotic energy of his earlier and more self-evidently youthful work. In the finest of the series of drawings to which Kniender weiblicher Halbakt belongs however, Schiele attained new heights, merging his more clinical interest in the shape, form and volume of the figure with a tenderness and suffused eroticism that renders the female form as a splendour of nature. In his command of his subject and in the way that the twisting and bending form of this woman is articulated as a sinuous form stretching across the blank background of the page, Schiele captures the same sinuous eroticism as is expressed in Giovanni Segantini's 1894 masterpiece The Wicked Mothers. Schiele undoubtedly knew this work as it was housed in the Österreichisches Galerie and had caused a sensation in Vienna when it was first shown in the city and subsequently bought by the Secession in 1898. Many of Schiele's early paintings of plants and trees also bear a striking resemblance to the struggling and striving forms of the tree in Segantini's masterpiece. The same vigorous sense of energy and animated form permeates the best of Schiele's 1917 drawings and gouaches, especially the present work where the contorted pose of the figure seems to have been wrought by an inner nature seeking to outwardly express itself through its bodily form.
Kniender weiblicher Halbakt is one of a small group of exceptional female nudes that Schiele painted in 1917 in which the overt eroticism of his earlier work and the sharp trembling energy of his former needle-like line has been toned down in favour of a more objective concentration on the human figure as a complex but expressive force of nature. The way in which, in this gouache, the rounded, almost sculptural form of the figure bends awkwardly in an extraordinarily expressive pose so that it both contrasts with and articulates the emptiness of the blank page is not only symptomatic of Schiele's new work but also appears to be the artist's central concern.
Kniender weiblicher Halbakt belongs to a unique group of masterful drawings from this period in which the pictorial contrast between the void of the page and the earthy, voluminous and, for Schiele, surprisingly material forms of the nude figure is of paramount importance. Among these gouaches are a number of works depicting clearly horizontal poses on which Schiele has placed his monogrammatic signature in such a way as to suggest that the work be read vertically. This somewhat unorthodox decision by the artist to deny the order of nature and the pull of gravity on his figures probably reflects the fact that it was not simple naturalism that Schiele sought from these nudes. It was the use of the female form as a vehicle by which to express a wider and more abstract understanding of nature as a vital and existential phenomenon, as an animate and procreative presence. Certainly, the rhythm of outline, painterly form and empty unpainted void is more dramatic when these 'rotated' works are read in the way the artist intended. The blank space of the picture seems to play as important a role as the carefully modelled painted forms.
As with his paintings of trees and plants set against a vast empty background, what appears to interest Schiele in Kniender weiblicher Halbakt - which, with its diagonal pose has no need of the 'rotation' he bestowed on other works - is the stark contrast between the living, breathing, animate nature of the semi-naked form and the bleak emptiness of the background. The warm tones of the skin, flushed cheeks, gentle articulation of the bones under the skin and the clear but softly moulded outlines of her form, all combine to convey a powerful sense of an isolated living human presence. Schiele's sublime command over his materials now requires no help from the expressive gesture, distortion, forced emphasis or white-painted highlights that distinguished the fervour of his earlier work. Here, set against an empty paper background, Schiele's soft crayon outline and assured and confident modelling magically bring to life the figure of a woman who seems born both to and from the page within which she is confined.
This gouache is no individualised portrait however, in the way, for example, that many of Schiele's earlier drawings of nudes had been. It is strictly the living nature of the human form that Schiele appears interested in here, not the individuality or inner psychology of the figure that intrigues as it was, for example, in so many of his portraits of 1910 and 1911. The model Schiele used for this work is unknown. It is probably a professional model whom Schiele is known to have used as the source for several drawings and one or two major paintings during the first part of 1917. By the summer, Schiele's financial situation had radically transformed and he was able for the first time to set up a harem of models in his studio in the manner of his mentor Gustav Klimt. Preceding this, in the first part of the year, Schiele seems to have repeatedly used a lone professional model or, more often than not, his wife Edith and his sister-in-law Adele Harms. Edith and Adele appear frequently in his work of 1917, and Adele is another possible source for this work. Schiele often obscured or intermingled the features of the two sisters largely for the sake of his wife's modesty. Edith Schiele was at once both jealous of her husband's models and naturally shy. While she therefore preferred to sit for her husband herself, she had no desire to be recognised as the subject of his pictures, especially when it was often given to her to deliver his works to their respective buyers and patrons. Adele Harms, Edith's sister, who later claimed to be having an affair with Schiele at this time, though she was a notoriously unreliable witness to events and also made claims of being 'really a nun'!, was the darker-haired of the two sisters and more closely resembles the figure in Kniender weiblicher Halbakt. It is possible, but nonetheless unlikely, that she is the source that Schiele used for what in the end is essentially a generic female figure.
Kniender weiblicher Halbakt belongs to a series of drawings of a half-nude woman in her underclothes that stands amongst the finest of his works executed in 1917 and are a match for works of any date. With maturity, Schiele's art had gained an assured mastery and command often at the expense of much of the neurotic fervour and erotic energy of his earlier and more self-evidently youthful work. In the finest of the series of drawings to which Kniender weiblicher Halbakt belongs however, Schiele attained new heights, merging his more clinical interest in the shape, form and volume of the figure with a tenderness and suffused eroticism that renders the female form as a splendour of nature. In his command of his subject and in the way that the twisting and bending form of this woman is articulated as a sinuous form stretching across the blank background of the page, Schiele captures the same sinuous eroticism as is expressed in Giovanni Segantini's 1894 masterpiece The Wicked Mothers. Schiele undoubtedly knew this work as it was housed in the Österreichisches Galerie and had caused a sensation in Vienna when it was first shown in the city and subsequently bought by the Secession in 1898. Many of Schiele's early paintings of plants and trees also bear a striking resemblance to the struggling and striving forms of the tree in Segantini's masterpiece. The same vigorous sense of energy and animated form permeates the best of Schiele's 1917 drawings and gouaches, especially the present work where the contorted pose of the figure seems to have been wrought by an inner nature seeking to outwardly express itself through its bodily form.