Egon Schiele

by Simon Wilson

A Beautiful Monograph Highlighting the Expressionist Painter's Passionate, Cutting Edge Career. Austrian painter Egon Schiele (1890-1918) was a passionate man--for life, for death, and most notably, for sex. Through the mediums of drawing and painting he was able to indulge himself fully in these obsessions. Schiele's free artistic spirit shook the cultural constraints of his day and gave rise to his famous nude self-portraits and paintings of female nudes. Despite criticism throughout his brief career, Schiele emerged as a major figure in the history of modern art and the development of the Expressionist movement.EGON SCHIELE, by art historian and curator Simon Wilson, is a beautifully illustrated monograph on the artist and his work. This affordable book documents the breadth of Schiele's career within his short 28-year lifespan, from erotic nudes to peaceful landscapes, with a series of 78 illustrations and accompanying text that retain the power to shock and endear audiences one hundred years later.Schiele's notorious nude figures reflect the context of his era and how he was viewed--scandalous. He was living in a Freudian-influenced Vienna, a time when sex and human reality intertwined and the taboo topic of eroticism became more of a public, scientific discussion. His artistic approach reflects this societal shift and Schiele's vision gave expression to powerful feelings and anguished honesty, as seen in the controversial paintings of women on women in Two Girls Lying Entwined and in erotic self-portraits like Eros. And even when dogged by critics and plagued by accusations of pornography, once even thrown in jail for forcefully employing young girls as models, Schiele continued to approach his vocation as an artist with uncompromising intensity.In this recently revised book, Wilson examines Schiele's unique vision as an artist, as well as his less controversial work as a landscape and portrait painter. EGON SCHIELE puts his life and work in the context of this time, demonstrating how the painter's style of expression gave form to the anxieties and insecurities that beset Western culture at the turn of the century. Today, his emotional, powerful and expressive images reveal the way Schiele defied convention, as well as illuminate his bold career based on the relationship between humanity, sex and life--a career that continues to elicit response from worldwide audiences to this day.

Genres: Art

Hardcover

First published August 1, 1987

About the author

Simon Wilson is an art historian & retired Tate Gallery curator (1967-2002).

Reviews

[Jesse · Rating 5 out of 5]

Schiele has slowly established himself as my favorite artist over the years--there's something about that distinctive combination of twitchy sexual energy, bitter existential anguish and the startling insistence of the exposure of the self that deeply moves me. Very little of his work is "beautiful" per se, but for me, somewhere along the way he often stumbles into the sublime. Though a rather slender collection, this particular tome served for me as the best introduction to his work, with short, illuminating essays by Wilson that cluster and contextualize Schiele's work in themes ("Themes of Life and Death," "Nude Self-Portraits: the Self, Metaphysical and Sexual Angst") rather than adhere to a strict chronology. I return to it often.

"He grapples directly with the reality he depicts, reshaping and re-creating it so that it becomes a new independent pictorial entity, a kind of super reality charged with the psychic power of the artist's vision, with his ideas, feelings and emotions."

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

A quick but informative read. A good book for anyone wanting an introduction into the life and work of Schiele. The pages are filled with photos of his work, sadly quite a few are in black and white but they are still great examples of the amazing work he produced in his short life.