Egon Schiele

Egon Schiele- A leading figure of Austrian Expressionism

Egon Schiele, a great and well-known innovator of the modern figure craft or drawing, is quite famous worldwide for developing deeply psychological and erotic portraits. In some paintings, he used himself to show his skills in figure distortion, unique signature graphic style, and his way to show the beauty's conventional norms, which always attracted the viewers.

The early life of Egon Schiele

Egon was born in 1890 in Tulln, Lower Austria.

His father's name was Adolf Schiele, and his mother's name was Marie. He was very fascinated by trains and used to spend a lot of time drawing trains. At 11 years of age, Egon moved from Tulln to Krems (Krems an der Donau), where he began his education in a secondary school. Except for drawing and athletics, his performance in other fields was very poor. When he was just 14 years old, Egon's father died after suffering from Syphilis.  

After that, he joined the Kunstgewerbeschule (School of art and crafts) in Vienna, to learn arts. In 1907, his life took a major turn when Gustav Klimt, who once studied at Kunstgewerbeschule too, introduced Egon to the Wiener Werkstatte, a well-known arts and crafts workshop. During his early years, Egon was greatly motivated by Kokoschka and Klimt. 

In 1909, Egon was invited by Klimt to demonstrate his artworks at the Vienna Kunstschau. There, he saw the amazing artworks of Jan Toorop, Edvard Munch, and more. After that, he started exploring the human form as well as human sexuality. Even though his artworks were very daring, they went deeper when he integrated the decorative eroticism of Klimt. He added different variations, such as deformities, elongations, sexual openness, and more. 

He started experimenting with various forms, especially with nudes, in 1910. His self-portrait, named "Kneeling Nude with Raised Hands," is the most remarkable nude artwork of the 20th century. Egon and Edith were married on 17th June 1915. 

He generally used the colors sparingly. In some self-portraits, he made few nude paintings, making it look like he is staring at the viewers. His works were very aggressive and revealing. On the other hand, his female subjects are also nude, and, in the paintings, you will find the bodies portrayed in different contorted positions. The best thing about the paintings is all of them were direct and raw. 

 Egon In World War I

During World War I, he was stationed in Prague. After three days of their wedding, Egon was ordered to report the service. In Prague, he was posted to escort and guard the Russian prisoners. But he started to use them as subjects for art. He was provided with a storeroom to use an art studio. However, during the war, his artworks and painting became more famous and detailed. He used to exhibit the painting in Berlin, and he had multiple successful shows in different places, such as Dresden, Zurich, and Prague. 

In 1918, the Spanish flue took around 20,000,000 lives in Vienna and Europe. Egon lost his wife on 28th October when she succumbed to the Spanish flu. And Egon died just after three days of the incident at 28 years of age. 

His painting styles

Different well-known critics, like Jane Kallir, have stated that his paintings demonstrate disturbing, erotic, pornographic, and grotesque styles, and they all are based on discovery, death, and sex. Martin Gayford mentioned in The Spectator that his artworks explain multiple tendencies, such as disgusted preoccupation combined with sexuality and fascination.