Detail of 'Self-Portrait with Physalis' (1912) by Egon SchieleCredit: Bridgeman
Egon Schiele had a brief, calamitous life, dead at 28. The “Cursed Artist” found each day more turbulent than the last, until he succumbed to the Spanish Flu pandemic that swept across Europe, reaching Vienna in 1920.
Growing up, he watched his father’s mental health deteriorate, a sister die aged 10, his mother lose a daughter at birth and then another a year later – it was a morbidly bleak upbringing for an already hypersensitive young man. In his painting Dead Mother, completed when he was 20, he was clearly still traumatised by his mother’s suffering, creating the moving image of a parent seen with her stillborn child as she lies with the foetus in a pool of amniotic fluid.
In 1906, Schiele had enrolled in Vienna’s Academy of Fine Arts, where his gifts quickly became apparent. His professor, Christian Griepenkerl, was asked about the boy’s abilities, and replied: “Does he have talent? Yes, too much. He messes up the entire class.”
Soon to be seen as a natural member of the Vienna Secession movement, Schiele had become a protégé of its leader, the great Gustav Klimt. But unlike Klimt, whose paintings had a radiant grandeur to them, Schiele wanted to emphasise raw expression. He was particularly inspired by the young female form and, conveniently, his sister allowed him to study the evolution of her body. A revelatory painting from this time was Portrait of Gerti Schiele in which she is seen against a stark, blank background, monochrome and unadorned, the graphic power of his drawing translated dramatically in paint.
After Schiele met 17-year-old Valerie Neuzil, one of Klimt’s models, she became his mistress, as well as a muse for many of his greatest portraits. Routinely named “Wally”, she appears in a number of his psychologically charged works. Schiele’s efforts were starting to be recognised by his peers, who were struck by his sombre palette, irregular contours and dark symbolism. Captivated by the immediacy of drawing, he still regarded it as his primary art form, and this translated into paintings with an emphasis on contour and striking draughtsmanship.
The intense sexual directness of his drawings and paintings was soon to put him at the centre of an endless series of scandals. He was accused of the corruption of minors and public immorality, as it became clear that his models were sometimes only 15. Many of his works were confiscated for being debauched, and he was even jailed for three weeks, with the judge burning one of the offending pictures over the flame of a candle. Schiele’s time in prison resulted in him producing a series of 12 remarkable paintings that depicted the humiliation and discomfort of being locked in a cell.
The subjects in many of Schiele’s works are frozen in unconventional and overwrought poses – distorted, with grimacing faces, and unsettling angles for the body and hands. They are certainly uncomfortable to look at but, then, his intention was to portray the anguished interior life he sensed within his subjects. His searing self-portraits were equally tormented, often depicting himself naked in explicitly revealing confrontations with the viewer.
Schiele expresses himself perfectly in his Self-Portrait with Physalis, appearing both cockily self-confident and, at the same time, inherently fragile. He was clearly projecting his own inner turmoil, to create a distance and tension with the viewer.
He completed it in 1912, during a period when he was producing paintings and drawings at a furious pace, and when his expressionistic approach seemed calmer and closer to reality. Reminiscent of Chinese lantern flowers, the slender twigs of the physalis fruit act as an off-kilter backdrop; the strange biomorphic form with its thin spidery legs seems ready to envelop young Schiele. His inclined head turns, squeezed into the cropped format, his shoulder to the right seemingly continuing the line to his jawbone. Schiele’s brushwork generates rich nuances of skin, and his enlarged eye, staring down at the viewer, has a bright red pupil. This startling portrait captures Schiele just before his problems with the authorities arose and he felt his creativity temporarily sapped.
The First World War was to have the most transformative effect on Schiele’s life. He was lucky not to be sent to the front lines, and his primary duties in the army were to guard the Russian prisoners. Also fortunately for him, his commanding officer allowed him access to a studio to continue painting. Here, his art once again continued to evolve, and started to appear more balanced. Bodies were no longer disjointed and tortured-looking, and he had found a wife who became his primary model, a more mature subject than his troubled adolescents.
In 1917, the couple returned to Vienna, and found his art more respectfully received. It seems that Austrian society had now decided on the artistic value of young Schiele, who was still being championed by their greatest artist, Klimt. Schiele was soon invited to show at the 49th Exhibition of the Vienna Secession, and most of the 50 paintings he displayed were sold – he was even securing portrait commissions. Successful shows in Zurich, Prague and Dresden followed, and he was now being widely acknowledged as a gifted young talent of great note.
