Firstly the reading I did about the young Schiele made me gasp as to my disbelief I found detailing of the incestuous nature he had with his youngest sister Gertrude. It seems they were very close. He used her as a model for many of his first works. The story I read hinted at the fact his father was suspicious of this sexual nature and kept a watchful eye on his son. It also said that Schiele at the age of sixteen took Gertrude aged fourteen, to a hotel for the night. Even for a sixteen year old this to me seems an over the top gesture for one so young, never mind for a treat with a sibling. It’s said the young Schiele did not have many friends, and while at school he was shy and reserved. Also some students found him strange. While he struggled academically, he did well in the arts and sports. His father being a station master, Schiele started drawing the intricate working and images of the trains and station. This set him up later for his interest in the arts.
It is believed that many adult men would drink and visit brothels in this era. I think with that said for many younger children hearing such stories of these places for men and their enthusiastic pursuits it would have been hard for teenage boys/girls not to show some kind of fascination or interest into the what happens inside such places. I do feel that this interest came from questioning what morals and boundaries were acceptable at the time. Teenagers are funny creatures after all.
The death of his father (from sexually transmitted disease syphilis) in 1904 would later have a massive impact on the psychological factors of his work. "I don't know whether there is anyone else at all who remembers my noble father with such sadness,' he would write to his brother-in-law a decade later. He also wrote details of painting grave scenes and he expresses that his father's death still lives in him.
It was two years after his father’s death, he moved to Vienna to study at the Academy of Fine Arts. Schiele was youngest student at the time being only sixteen. It’s also said he won the place over another student named Adolf Hilter that very same year. At this time Vienna was in the process of an art revolution. The artists, poets, sculptors and architects were split off from the Association of Artists establishments which were mainly housed in the Vienna Kunstlerhaus. The new Vienna Secession was born and was creating its own movement as a Union of artist’s with new and contemporary ideas. One of the leaders of the group was Gustav Klimt. He would later meet Schiele and become his mentor. While Klimt's style was very dreamy, clean and had style of the art nouveau, Schiele's own style began to take on its own characteristic. He takes us beyond ourselves to a darker self. Remembering the time period many people were questioning the science of the mind and philosophers like Sigmund Freud were popular and trying to push the boundaries of what was acceptable in the social authorised society. Influences from the interest in human psychology and the dead of this father etc, gave his work a somewhat dark sense and style. Exotic and sexual I think society helped him also to push the boundaries of what was tasteful. While most of it was viewed as taboo he did have a way of making it feel real in the sense of a truth. Not a style of one that people were used to viewing. The noble and grand style had been forced out and he lay down the plain yet enhancing qualities of the model. Stripped back and bearing all but with a style that oozed power and demanded attention. Some of the models he used were young and I think this is the reason you could question if they male or female.
The prepubescent nature of his work was sometimes questioned and he even ended up arrested twice with regards to the age of some of female models used.
While in prison he drew and painted scenes from his cell. Below is a work called A single orange is the only light. The title for me tells of the tortures he is feeling. The Jacket, blanket and an orange are the only coloured detail. The rest is line drawing and while simple the detail is still recorded. The judge that had sentenced him to jail for exhibition of pornographic material to minors, abduction and seducing underage girls burned one of his drawing that had been seized for evidence at the time over a candle in the courtroom. This infuriated Schiele and he wrote that he felt “The investigation ran its wretched course; I’m terribly punished without punishment. The judge that burned the image that hung over my bed, Auto-da-fe! Savonaola, Inquistion! Middle Ages! Castration! Hypocrisy go then to the museums and cut up the greatest works of art into little pieces. He who denies sex is a filthy person who smears in the lowest way his own parents who have begotten him. You can see for this journal entry that he was passionate and believed in his work. He seems to have a sarcastic wit with some of the prison images. I think having such a bold mindset, prison for Schiele must have been more mentally tortured than psychically .
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| single orange |
After 24 days in jail, with only charges against morality, children rarely appeared back in his work.
Reading pieces about his past I've always thought of his drawing as eerie or strange. Manly because of the exaggerated distorted use of line. However, I think this also adds the best to his work. I can’t imagine society would have taken kindly to his style. So raw and in your face, I can see many, especially women been appalled by the images. The use of photography and demand for pornography in the early 1900’s makes you think about how society has and hasn’t really changed much. The porn industry is massive and yet we don’t think it socially acceptable to talk about. Schiele’s work a hundred plus years on, still shocks and gives you the viewer the sense of a psychological struggle between what is or should be normal. While honest and part of everyone’s sexual urges or truth in one way or another we still shy away for the raw and real details of sex. We all have sex and yet many still find it taboo to express real life imagery in the way Schiele did. I do believe he was ahead of his time then but also now.
While the use of gestalt and psychological characteristics seem to be very much a play here. The senses of the brain are using things like line, depth, colour etc trying to rationalise what is going on in the image. The use of continuous line and the way he does view the subject really comes out. His compositions and formations create a feeling of unease. The work is real, strong and present with a great three dimensional quality. I believe all these factors play massive emphasis on the overall image. I also like how in some of the images he uses strong bold colours in his drawing/paintings. It’s bold and contrasts of the darkening focus of the image. I think the sense of frustration comes out in the way the bodies are sometimes contorted. If you think about the position of the figure or were to mimic the pose yourself, you would get a greater sense of what the artist wanted to portray.
I can’t decide if his intention was to shock the viewer or if he really was searching for something inside himself. With Klimt’s work many of the females were that of a dreamlike or of a myth logically ideology. But you don’t get the sense of this in Schiele’s work. While common in both artists, is eroticism for me Schiele just has a darken edge to his work. Maybe the fact that Klimt worked mostly from commissions while Schiele had to ask for models. He was free in the sense of he could do what he wanted. Either way I do like both artists work. But for me Schiele will always have a sense of the modern man and the torture that comes with all that. Dying of the Spanish flu just aged 28 I do think to have such strong output of work does really tell you how talented and obsessive he was for his art. For some people art is just in them and with all of his torment in such a short life time art really was a massive part of who he was. I think it was like therapy for him and a way of expressing himself.
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