"Egon Schiele, born in the Austria-Hungary of 1890, certainly did live in interesting times, and his work, as featured in the new Great Art Explained video above, can look like the creations of a cursed man. That's especially true of those of his many self-portraits that, as host James Payne puts it, render his own body "more emaciated than it actually was, radically distorted and twisted, sometimes faceless or limbless, sometimes in abject terror.""
"But what tends to occupy most discussions of Schiele's art is less his familial or psychological background than his line: the "thin line between beauty and suffering" that clearly obsessed him, yes, but also the line created by the hand with which he drew and painted. His art remains immediately recognizable today because "his line has a particular rhythm: angular, tense, and economically placed. It's not just a means of describing form; it's a voice.""
Egon Schiele produced self-portraits that distort and emaciate the body, often appearing faceless, limbless, or in abject terror. Early trauma included witnessing his father's death from syphilis contracted on his wedding night. Schiele's work fuses suffering and eroticism, implying disgust toward the body while exploring sexual themes. The defining feature of the art is the hand-drawn line: angular, tense, and economically placed, serving as a vocal instrument rather than mere description. Schiele created psychological portraits focused on inner truth, making his work immediately recognizable and obsessed with the thin boundary between beauty and suffering.
Read at Open Culture
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