Egon Schiele: Eros and Passion

by Klaus Albrecht Schröder, Egon Schiele

In this brilliant analysis, the erotic work of the Expressionist artist is examined within the perspective of history's shifting views concerning beauty, aesthetics, and decency.

Egon Schiele's controversial nudes and self-portraits were fiercely reviled when they first appeared in the early decades of the twentieth century and, nearly one hundred years later, they still have the power to shock. Examining why Schiele's work elicits this response, the author explores the social constrictions of Schiele's generation and the role of the artist as a breaker of taboos. Incorporating superb reproductions of Schiele's works, those of his contemporaries, and historical photographs, the author offers a penetrating study of an artist whose idea of beauty transcended the morality of his time.

Klaus Albrecht Schröder is Director of the Albertina Museum in Vienna, Austria.

Genres: Art, Nonfiction, Visual Art, Art History

116 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

Reviews

[Anneke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fantastic essays that somehow still made it to print with a handful of minor grammatical errors (mostly absent spaces). I honestly didn’t think this was the best selection of Schiele’s paintings and drawings. I’ve flipped through so many of his books and know they could have selected other works from his oeuvre that were stronger, although the complementary works of photography and his artistic contemporaries/influences were very well-done and provided great context and grounds for analysis. The actual image quality of the plates was just so-so. Some great essay titles here, my favorite being “The Culture of Grimacing”! I found the parts about the documentation of hysterics/psychiatric patients the most engaging and I was horrified by how entwined sanatoriums and “women’s health” (both terms that feel oxymoronic) were treated, that “hysterics” itself equates femininity and insanity/irrationality/pathology. The advent of photography, rapid advances in medicine, and the horrors of the beginning of the 20th century no doubt revolutionized the general population’s sensitivity to pain, to violence, to expression, to that which had been previously repressed or otherwise unseen. In the art world that reflected and digested these changes, it was revolutionary to present the human figure in such an incongruous manner as Schiele did, wherein the posture, face, and emotion are not neatly in alignment yet still reach toward a common psychological symbolism: “The expression of the sufferer derives not so much from first-hand experience, as from other, preexisting images, whether artistic or scientific” 74. I’m finding myself very drawn to the sensibilities of this school of Viennese artists (also including Klimt and Kokoschka) and want to read some Stefan Zweig so I can get more of a literary perspective on the Austria they inhabited and interpreted together.

I also really like this excerpt from one of Schiele’s letters, written after his friend and critic Arthur Roessler blew off a modeling session for his painting: “I am extremely sensitive, and all these people have no idea how to behave to an artist.” What a fun (and egotistical) sentiment that inverts the idea of the artist as a social abnormality/outcast who refuses integration into polite society. What if it’s really “polite society” that denies the artist and in so doing also denies itself and the natural human sensitivity it deems impolite? Now onto a collection of Schiele’s letters and poems — so excited to dive in!

[Dustincecil · Rating 5 out of 5]

yes to all of this.

[Tee · Rating 1 out of 5]

Did not finish. Writing is impossibly dense. (The one-star rating does NOT apply to the artwork!)

[Sean Billy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Great examples of Shiele's paintings of figures. The writing though, gives less than exciting insight into the works.

[Al Maki]

It's a series of short writeups about different aspects of his work or the times with examples from the work of Schiele and others that together develop an explanation of Schiele's work, weaving together some discussion about composition and poses with ideas about his work as a counterblast to sexual repression.