Egon Schiele's Self Portrait

Austrian painter Egon Schiele's paintings all carry his own distinctive style of expressionism- taking the normally soft and delicate form of the nude figure and replacing it with gnarled and emotive specters, all jagged lines and sinew with all the elegance of a praying mantis. Schiele's tormented figures and self-portraits are all relatively straight forward studies in malnourished anatomy. Following a pattern, they are simple compositions that usually consist of a light background with a figure placed glaringly in the center of the page, sometimes framed and isolated by an aura of white lining around the subject. Most of Egon Schiele's self-portraits (and there are a lot) convey the sense of the introspective/narcissistic tortured artist- his facial expression is commonly twisted into a quizzical scowl with body contorted to match as his glamorized form snakes up the canvas with exaggerated proportions, soulful eyes, and electrified hair. Of course there are many variations on this formula, with Schiele exploring himself (in more ways than one) to the point of obsessive introspection, however, with continuously interesting results.

The above painting is one of my favorites in Egon Scheile's catalogue. Set against a bone-white backdrop, his harsh figure tears through the blank space like a poisoned thorn, using contrast to great effect. The colors used are an unsettling combination of rotten greens, browns, and oranges, jaundiced yellow, and flaring, angry reds to accent the eyes and nipples, all suggesting a negative view of the human body, or just the artist's state of mind. Like all of his paintings, Schiele gave himself a ghastly, yet elegant stature- accentuating every joint, curve, and jutting bone on his skeletal figure. Schiele lavishes so much on the line and form of his body that the center figure almost becomes a type of landscape, complete with trenches and crags making up a ribcage and pelvis. This is, in fact, on of my favorite things about Schiele's work. Even though there isn't a lot happening in his paintings (usually just off-beat poses) his attention to detail, disturbingly beautiful exaggerations, and exquisite use of line and color envelope and encourage the viewer to notice each and every brush-stroke. I found it very interesting that Schiele chose to paint himself without feet and hidden hands, turning his figure into a very phallic, albeit helpless form, playing into the sexual nature of most of his paintings.

From Egon Schiele's self-portrait I realized that simplicity can be key in compositions. I want to start experimenting with keeping things simple and exploring what you can accomplish by a well-placed figure and attention to detail. Something else I took from the portrait is the idea of exaggeration. One of the things I love about Schiele's work is how expressive he is with his abnormal proportions. I love the idea of taking the features of a model, or myself, and exaggerating them until they are unmistakeably those of my subject. By examining Egon Schiele, I want to adopt his sense of expression and fine-tuned distortion- exploring how to express myself through restrained composition and amplified features, without becoming all too self-obsessed.