“My being, my decaying, translated into abiding values, must have a compelling power over other well or better educated beings, like a religion that appears credible. The furthest will acknowledge me, they will look at and see me while my detractors will live under my hypnosis.”
E. Schiele
Egon Schiele is one of the few artists that portrayed female sexuality in its most realistic way in his more completed works. At the dawn of the twentieth century European society was so inclined to make sexuality into a taboo subject it banned Gustav Klimt and Schiele’s pieces, calling them lewd and immoral. Freudian psychoanalysis’ response to the accusation was to delve into the idea. It discovered the belief of the collective unconscious that any sexually inspired thought must be a sign of depravity.
While his friend and mentor, Klimt, stated that his only interest was to painting the female body, Schiele demonstrated an artistic need to capture eroticism. His particular fixation on female sex and sensuality began during his first studies of female anatomy. His most frequent subjects in his body of work are women with their legs open, mid-masturbation, and their bodies emboldened by monochromatic backgrounds. Each irregular and reluctant brushstroke that outlines the figures gives them movement and reality.
The first encounter the young Schiele had with the inspiration behind his art was through his younger sister Gertrude, who he painted nude in some of his first pieces. There are critics and art historians who presume the painter had a romantic attachment to her. Schiele’s obsession led him to incarceration for an alleged seduction of a girl under the age of consent. It was during this time that he met seventeen-year-old Wally Neuzil, who would become his greatest muse. This led to the most prolific moment in his career.
Egon Schiele was the reflection of a tumultuous life full of tragedy and eroticism. His artistic appreciation and sensibility was brought on by an array of misfortunes. His fleeting life –he died at 28– is a contradiction to the legacy of his art. Is there a philosophical link, a deep studied relationship regarding eroticism and tragedy? The work of Georges Bataille on eroticism appears to be inspired by the Viennese painter’s canvases. According to the French intellectual, eroticism shows a strong will. It’s the violence that drives and guides life and death. The unbreakable and contradictory union between eroticism and fatality, vitality and mortality, is tangible in the twisted shapes of the women in his paintings.
Schiele resorted to explicit sensuality, full nudes, and exposed genitals. The blushing women showing their pubic hair break the idealism of sex. They create a higher arousal with a gaze that acknowledges the spectator’s presence and dives into self-indulgence.
Schiele’s disengagement with the aesthetics of the female body, the decadence of the times, and the work of his mentor brought on a sensibility within modern art that is as peculiar as it is rare. The painter declared himself against scholarship in his paintings and continued exalting time and time again the pleasure-inducing act that demonstrates humanity: sex.
Take a look at Gustav Klimt’s sensual drawings, as well as other works that are not to be missed.
Translated by María Suárez
