Degenerate art or revolutionary masterpieces? Egon Schiele's groundbreaking influence

Egon Schiele (1890-1918) , one of the most important Austrian artists of the 20th century , had a revolutionary effect on the art world with his works.

During his life, he was controversial as a provocative artist, but despised by the Nazis and prohibited his "degenerate art" . Only after his death was the expressionist recognized as an extraordinary talent.

Egon Schiele, who was born 133 years ago on June 12, 1890, caused controversy opinions throughout his life. Even today there are vehement supporters of his art and those who devalue them as pornographically.

Until his death in 1918, Schiele was only known in Vienna and with some German -speaking people as an artist. In the meantime, however, it is viewed as a fixture of expressionism and his paintings achieve high prices on the art market .

Nevertheless, his work has not yet been completely decrypted, as Klaus-Albrecht Schroeder emphasizes-an expert in Schiele's works and director of the Viennese Albertina.

His expressiveness and the unique style challenged the traditional conventions of his time. Schiele's groundbreaking influences can be discovered in exhibitions such as in the Belvedere Museum or in the Leopold Museum are presented alongside Gustav Klimt and other Viennese artists

Gustav Klimt and Oskar Kokoschka , Egon Schiele is considered one of the most important representatives of Austrian Expressionism. He has solved himself from the influences of Art Nouveau and symbolic elements that shaped Vienna Secession

His oeuvre not only shows his own fascinating life, but also the social and artistic changes of his time.

Whether you consider your art as "degenerate" or as a revolutionary masterpieces is left to every viewer, because Schiele's artistic heritage is both controversial and fascinating. In Tulln, the hometown of Egon Schiele, there is also an exhibition on his life and his works, which gives an insight into his development as an artist and illuminates his close connection to Wally Neuzil , his muse and lover.

The influence and meaning of Egon Schiele are undeniable and his works will continue to shape the art world.

The controversy about degenerate art and revolutionary masterpieces

Egon Schiele, an important Austrian artist of the 20th century, has caused both admiration and controversy with his works.

His avant -garde representation of the human body and its fashionable expression have had a lasting impact on the art world. His works, which are often erotic , were seen in the past as obscene and immoral.

The life of Egon Schiele was characterized by controversy. His intensive artistic expression and his deviating behavior often brought him into conflict with the company at that time. He was criticized for the sexual motifs in his works and his frank presentation of the human body.

However, Schiele was also able to count on a committed group of supporters, including his Muse Wally Neuzil, who served as inspiration for many of his masterpieces. The art world was transformed by Schiele's expressive and innovative approach to portraits and the human body.

Its use of strong colors and bold lines brought a new perspective on traditional representations. Schiele's influence on the Viennese art scene was decisive and laid the foundation for expressionism and other modern art movements.

The Viennese modernity, whose best -known exponent Schiele is, was characterized by the tension between "aesthetics and darkness" , the leitmotif of the 2018 theme year in Vienna. The works of Schiele tend to be dark, since with their sometimes extreme facial expression and mysterious gestures, they experimentally explore the abysses and shallows of the ego, which had come into a crisis around 1900.

In 1910, Emperor Franz Joseph expressed his horror about an act of women by Egon Schiele:

"It's really terrible."

If the artist had had the opportunity, he might have answered the emperor: "Even the most sensual work of art has a sacred meaning!" - Schiele noted at least in a letter in 1911 ( Sonntagsblatt ).

The critic Arnim Friedemann wrote in the spring of 1918 in the "Wiener Abendpost" about the Enfant Terrible of classic modernism:

Schiele paints and likes to draw the last truck and the extreme discarded, the woman as a instinctive herd animal, from which all inhibitions of the
custom and shame have fallen. His art - and she is art! - Don't smile, she grins in a sense in a diligent distortion. "

In the course of the Nazi culture policy, numerous of his works were then confiscated.

The research center "degenerate art" at the art -historical institute of the Free University of Berlin has created an inventory that lists a total of 23 works by Egon Schiele, which were confiscated during the Third Reich.

Of the confiscated objects, 17 came from the Folkwang Museum and five from other German museums - the exact place of origin was not known for one work. The research center indicates the exact date of the seizure August 25, 1937 ( database "degenerate art" ).

Life of Egon Schiele - a short biography

Childhood, early embossing and artistic training

Egon Schiele was born on June 12, 1890 in Tulln, a city near Vienna. His life and works are closely linked to the capital of Austria.

Schiele is growing up in a world of incredible double standards . The father is a commander at the train station, he must have found the children like an imperator: everything dances to his pipe. He has 40 employees, a very strong hierarchical structure. He commands around and of course also commands the family. Schiele must also have noticed that this regime, this etiquette, this life at the train station was not the whole truth.

That the father keeps going to Vienna; The young Egon should not miss the fact that he keeps doing things outside of these labels that his father regularly visits prostitutes what we can go out.

In 1905, when Egon was just fourteen, a tragic turn occurred in his life: his father dies to syphilis. In the middle of this painful loss, the young Egon Schiele is looking for consolation and fulfillment in art.

Already at the tender age of two years he draws railways and landscapes, while his art teacher Ludwig Karl Strauch promotes him to school. With his support, the talented Egon even dares to apply for the renowned Vienna Academy of Fine Arts - with great success: at the age of sixteen he is recorded there and can further develop his artistic talents.

Here he studied painting and drawing, but was frustrated by the school's conservatism.

Climatic as a mentor

In 1907 he met Gustav Klimt, who encouraged him and influenced his work. Klimt and Schiele quickly formed a mentor mentee relationship that should have a major impact on the early development of the young artist.

Klimt had his influence on Schiele not only in the studio, but also by the fact that he was aware of patron with patrons, models and the work of other artists - such as Vincent van Gogh , Edvard Munch and Jan Toorop - to whom Schiele was very close despite his great veneration.

Schiele was also made known by Klimt with the Vienna workshop , the arts and custody sites of the Vienna Secession, a movement that had close connections to other modern art styles of that time.

In 1908, when Schiele was eighteen, he took part in his first exhibition, a group exhibition in Klosterneuburg, a small town north of Vienna.

Protest and the new art group

The following year, Schiele and some fellow students left the academy in protest and referred to the conservative teaching methods of the school and their failure to take on future -oriented artistic practices that were widespread throughout Europe.

As part of this rebellion, Schiele founded the new art group , which made up of other young, dissatisfied artists who left the academy.

The new group wasted no time and organized several public exhibitions throughout Vienna, while Schiele researched new forms of the picturesque expression and distortions and jagged forms as well as a darker color palette than that of more decorative and artistic art preferred Art Nouveau.

Essentially, Schiele gradually distanced himself from that of Klimt, although the two men remained closely connected until Klimt's death in early 1918. If the content of Schiele's work is an indication of this, it seems that the mentor and mentee shared an insatiable appetite for women.

On the occasion of the first exhibition of the New Art Group in 1909 in the Piska Salon in Vienna, Schiele met the art critic and writer Arthur Roessler , who made friends with him and was full of admiration about his work.

In 1910 a long -term friendship began with the collector Heinrich Benesch . At this point, Schiele had developed a personal expressionist portrait and landscape style and received a number of portrait orders from Vienna Intelligenzija .

Scandals in Vienna and allegorical self -portraits

While Schiele's work scandalized the Vienna Society, he also sold many of his explicit pictures to private collectors when newspapers criticized his work.

This development of explicit representations of female and male genitals in art is a phenomenon that could only take place in Vienna around 1900. The city has been shaken by scandals for some time and public discussions about the borders of art are omnipresent.

Women from higher social circles decently cover their legs and the neckline of their clothes. Artists such as Gustav Klimt and Oskar Kokoschka provoke the double standards of this Danubeetropolis with their revealing representations of naked women .

Musicians like Gustav Mahler and Arnold Schönberg courageously exceed the border to modernity; Arthur Schnitzler's dramas shake the foundation of society, while Sigmund Freud speaks publicly about women's sexuality for the first time.

Although Schiele did not know the psychoanalyst personally, all of Vienna knows about Freud's spectacular knowledge.

Egon Schiele has been familiar with this double standard since childhood. As a contrast to the ideal of beauty of the Viennese secession, he shows the ugly and distorted. The limbs of his young women and men are unnaturally long and emaciated, while the genital organs are inviting and colorful.

In search of isolation, Schiele left Vienna in 1911 to live in several small villages; He increasingly focused on self -portraits and allegories on life, death and sex and made erotic watercolors .

The only 20 -year -old artist is particularly fascinated by the transition from childhood to adult times, both in girls and boys. In his works, he often focuses on the topic of self -discovery during puberty. This artistic orientation leads to a scandal in Neulengbach in 1912, a small town in the Vienna Forest.

Schiele's early studies were particularly controversial because he showed children used and pubescent girls in implicitly erotic situations.

For Schiele, the following year was of crucial importance for Schiele. In addition to participating in numerous group exhibitions - in Budapest, Cologne and Vienna - Schiele from the Gallery Hans Goltz in Munich was invited to show his work together with members of the Expressionist group "The Blue Rider" , which Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc .

At that time, his most famous self -portrait with Physalis (1912), a captivating study by the artist, his face and other facial features full of lines, scars and subtle deformations belonged to Schiele's works.

The Goltz exhibition got his greatest attention so far and revealed its rich use of personal symbolism and dark allegories to the public.

Arrest for minor models

Also in 1912, when Schiele lived in the Austrian city of Neulengbach, he was arrested in his studio and was locked up for twenty -four days because he was accused of kidnapping and rape a twelve -year -old girl.

This indictment was finally dropped and he was convicted because he had exposed to children of erotic pictures . The police had confiscated 125 of his "degenerate" works, and in a symbolic gesture the judge burned one of his drawings in the courtroom (the work that a young girl shows naked from the hip had previously been exhibited on the wall of his studio).

The incident had a significant impact on Schiele because it then stopped using children as models, although the morbidity and sexual uniqueness of his work - especially his drawings - had apparently increased from prison after his release.

Army service, marriage, tragedies and the end of life

In 1913 the Gallery Hans Goltz, Munich, Schiele's first solo exhibition organized. A solo exhibition of his work took place in Paris in 1914.

His private life also took a turn when he wrote to a friend in 1915: "I had to marry, and advantageous" and Edith Harms, a young woman with a good social reply, made a marriage proposal.

Although he hoped to continue his relationship with Wally Neuzil, she left him when she found out about his engagement. A loss that is clearly expressed "Der Death and the Girl"

Four days after his marriage, Schiele was finally moved into military service. However, he never experienced a real fight throughout the war and instead was allowed to continue and exhibit his art, wherever he was stationed.

Inspired by his war trips, Schiele created a series of landscape and cityscapes , which the usual excessive contours of the artist were missing.

In 1917 Schiele was back in Vienna and worked hard. In the same year, he founded and Klimt together the city of the city, a new exhibition room that was supposed to encourage Austrian artists, to stay in their homeland. The following year, the artist experienced both moving successes and tragedies in many ways.

In February his mentor and friend Klimt suffered a stroke and pneumonia. Just a month later, the Vienna Secession organized its 49th annual exhibition (1918) and dedicated the main exhibition space to Schieles plant, which gave the matter a great commercial success.

He died a few months later at the age of 28 on October 31, 1918 in Vienna on the Spanish flu, on which his wife was fatal three days earlier. In the three days between her respective death, Schiele made several sketches of his late wife.

In his last moments, the young Austrian artist Egon Schiele experienced an extraordinary appearance: on his deathbed at the end of October 1918, he whispered the words with increasing strength:

After my death, people will undoubtedly praise me and admire my art. "

The unique style of Egon Schiele

The art of Schiele has the ability to present people in their time in a unique and moving way. This style still penetrates deep into our images and emotion world of the 21st century.

So far there is nothing comparable that can staged the body so skillfully - be it as a battlefield, playground or crime scene.

It is an artistic self -staging in which every emotional expression from intensive despair to apathetic melancholy with color, broken shape or lines is brought to life - like a sign of decay or a flop on an area.

As obsessed with thighs and buttocks, of female and male genitals, of heterosexuals, homosexuals and lesbian hugs. He drew the sexes and colored them like overripe fruits. And he presented himself as a saint, naked with an obscene love tool. The bodies are painfully thin from empty backgrounds that become abyss.

Around 1914, his painted figures seem to stagger in trance, without orientation or goal. This is due to the "geometry", from which Schiele created his characters. For example, he constructed a lying woman from two triangles. Even their genitals have triangular shapes.

Schiele's productions of the obsessed, the abysmated and morbid through pure drawing art today seem even more magical than ever - but deeply human at the same time. This almost voluptuous contortion of the body shows vague influences of symbolism and Viennese Art Nouveau ; Nowadays this is seen as a painter's identity search - not as much as the work of an early gifted myth '.

The representation of the naked body in Schiele's works

The representation of the body in Schiele's works plays a central role in his work and contributes to his controversial reputation as an artist.

In his works he breaks with the traditional ideals of beauty and shows the body in its authentic and often unadorned form. Schiele's drawing drawings are particularly well known in which he reveals the human anatomy in detail and relentlessly.

It dispenses with idealized proportions and represents the body from a distorted perspective in order to reflect the inner states and emotions of the people shown. Schiele focuses on the individuality of each body and thus shows its fascination for the uniqueness of human being.

A well -known work that illustrates this approach is the "portrait of Wally Neuzil" from 1912. In this painting, he shows Wally Neuzil, his lover and muse, in a self -confident pose with bare upper body.

The representation of the body in this work is honest and relentless, which was perceived as provocative and scandalous at the time. However, Schiele's artistic representation of the body was pioneering for the modern art movement and influenced many artists in his generation.

The representation of the body in Schiele's works is a central topic that underlines its revolutionary influence in the art world. His works still provoke discussions about the limits of the representation of the body and the importance of beauty in art .

Enigmatic gestures and religious staging patterns

The exhibition "Freedom of the I" in the Museum Georg Schäfer in Schweinfurt made it clear in 2018 that Schiele was a spiritual person - if not in the traditional religious sense.

The exhibition in Schweinfurt was divided into three areas: self-presentation, emotional world and subjectivity.

Significant works of art such as Schiele's “self -portrait with a lowered head” from 1912 (see illustration above) presented. In this painting, the artist forms a V with the index and middle finger of his right hand. A possible allusion to the frequently used blessing gesture of Christ in Byzantine art?

The art historian Stefan Kutzenberger ( who reported the Evangelical Sonntagsblatt ) indicates in the accompanying catalog that this gesture of the painter may be a reference to the Christ Pantocrator in the Istanbul Chora Church.

According to Kutzenberger, Schiele's gesture could thus be a symbol of artistic charisma - this impressively updates the romantic picture of the artist as a priest in the years around 1900, at least the connoisseur writes.

In addition, he leads another explanation: Possibly experimented Schiele together with his friend Dominik Osen, a painter and pantomime who achieved expressionist poses the greatest effect - however, this explanatory variant does not exclude the above.

The Catholic Schiele, who married in 1915 after Protestant rite, preferred to use religious staging patterns in his self -portraits. Kutzenberger underlined the fact that Schiele's representations as a saint, prophet, preacher, caller or anarchist say nothing about his own person or actual life story.

Rather, they are the result of social attributions and deliberately played role models - so it is in good company with later postmodern discourses.

Schiele's double self -portraits testify to his profound deal with occultism and spiritism that were modern around 1900. In a letter to his sister, he describes a remarkable spiritistic incident:

Today I really had a fascinating spiritual experience. I was awake, but tied up by the spirit that announced himself in a dream before I wake up. As long as he spoke to me, I was frozen and speechless. "

Schiele's works of art often have traces of Christian iconography . An example of this is the oil painting " Mother with two children II" from 1915, which picks up the Pieta type of the Middle Ages.

A slightly different kind of Christmas picture is "Dead Mother I" (1910), which shows a deceased mother who laid her hand protectively about her child. Schiele himself viewed this oil painting as one of his best works.

Significant works of art by Egon Schiele

Schiele left us an impressive abundance of works for his short life and the annihilation of some of his works in the course of National Socialism.

At this point we would like to show you 6 of the most important works of his extensive work and explain briefly - in chronological order.

Portrait of Gerti Schiele, 1909

This is one of Schiel's numerous portraits of his younger sister Gerti , the artist's favorite model of the artist in his early career and the member of his family, with whom he was most closely connected.

This early portrait, which Gerti painted as a teenager, shows both the strong stylistic connection between Schiele's work and that from Klimt as well as the departure from the style of his mentor.

In her pose and jewelry, which consists of a series of flatter patches with gold and silver accents, Gerti's figure is reminiscent of Klimt's works such as the portrait of the Adele Bloch-Bauer (1907).

But in contrast to climate predecessors, the picture is less decorative than static and soft as if squeezing was pouring his depicted in tone. In addition, Schiele Klimt's richly shimmering, dominated by gold -dominated palette with more subdued colors, which resulted in a picture that has an dry effect and is more reminiscent of decay than growth.

Media : oil, silver, gold bronze color and pencil on canvas

Current location : Museum of Modern Art, New York

Sitting male act (self -portrait), 1910

Schiele's self -portraits are unusual not only because of the frequency with which the artist depicted himself, but also because of the way he did this: erotic representations in which he often naked in very revealing poses - male self -portraits, which in this regard practically seeking names in the western art world.

In this drawing, the artist has created an intensive and almost scary vision of himself: emaciated, with bright red eyes, deformed legs and without feet, completely exposed his body, but partially hidden his face, which may suggest a feeling of shame, a twisted pose that, like many authors, is thanks to the significant influence of modern dance.

Characteristic of the Expressionist style, which is increasingly practicing at the time, he expresses his fear through lines and contours as well as through a skin that appears worn out and exposed to rough elements.

Media : black chalk, watercolor and gouache on paper

Current location : Leopold Museum, Vienna

Self -portrait with physalis, 1912

This is perhaps Schiele's most famous self -portrait. In this work, which was created at a time, in which Schiele participated in numerous exhibitions, Schiele looks at the viewer directly and his facial expression shows trust in his artistic talent.

Although Schiele uses fewer distortions than in other self -portraits, the painting refuses to ideal to idealize its motif, and has scars and other lines that are characteristic of the artist's contoured manner.

The painting was exhibited in 1912 together with works by a number of other expressionist artists in Munich and has an accompanying portrait that represents its lover, Wally Neuzil at the time (the Wally portrait was stolen by the Nazis from the house of a Jewish Austrian just to save it). 2010 returned to Vienna after a twelve -year legal dispute.

Today it serves as a "flagship" for the Leopold Museum in Vienna, which houses the largest shoe collection in the world.

Media : oil on canvas

Current location : Leopold Museum, Vienna

The Hermits (The Hermits), 1912

This rare double portrait , which is one of the most allegorical works in Schiele's Oeuvre, shows Schiele and almost like a unit side by side. As close as the two men stood and despite all similarities, Schiele spent a large part of his career to free himself from Klimt's influence.

In Hermits, both men carry their characteristic long black cafts, a piece of clothing for the climate and used the squint, perhaps as a homage, for his own work. Schiele is not a friend of modesty and positions climate in the background, blindly and mostly hidden as if he were consumed by the younger artist.

The resulting form is reminiscent of a single dark figure and indicates that the confident successor Schiele takes over the coat of the old master. The hermit motif is also reminiscent of Schiele's existential view of the artist as a figure on the edge of society.

Media : oil on canvas

Current location : Leopold Museum, Vienna

Death and the girl, 1915

In this painting, one of the most complex and urgent works Schieles, the female figure clings to the male death figure, while it is surrounded by an equally roamed, quasi -surreal landscape.

As everywhere in his work, Schiele also connects the personal with the allegorical - in this case by turning into a topic that comes from the medieval concept of dance of death, which culminated in the German art of the 15th century.

"Death and the Girl" came about around the time when Schiele separated from his long -time lover Wally Neuzil and a few months before he married his new lover Edith Harms. The painting is reminiscent of the end of his affair with Neuzil and seems to present this separation as the death of true love.

Interestingly, the way in which Schiele's figures are almost consumed by her clothing and the abstract surrounding area, indicates the portrait painting of Klimt, which also placed his motifs into non -decipherable environments.

Media : oil on canvas

Current location : Austrian gallery, Belvedere, Austria

Town Among Greenery (The Old City III), 1917

Although his art focused on the human figure, Schiele - who had the opportunity to travel through Europe during his career - also felt to the country and cities.

In fact, the paintings of the artist, who show the landscape and his homeland Vienna, make up a significant part of his work. This painting was partially inspired by his mother's hometown, Krumau , where he lived for a short time in 1911.

Schiele's landscapes - although often deserted - have fascinating parallels to his figural work. Its frequent use of the bird's eye view in his landscape images is reminiscent of one of the most radical elements of his portrait painting: his tendency to portray his represented from above.

This painting contains further characteristic elements of Schiele's language, in particular the use of bold outline and sharp contours. What distinguishes this work from his portrait work is the use and color palette of the artist, for which Schiele was not known.

Media : oil on canvas

Current location : New Gallery, New York

What does a work of art by Egon Schiele cost?

A squinting that now has an average value of 100,000 euros was sold for only 50 Schilling - not even 4 euros. The estimated value was incredibly low during its lifetime.

Rudolf Leopold searched the art world based on the artist's works, acquired it and brought them together for a spectacular world tour.

Since the 1970s, Schiele's art has experienced a renaissance on the market and its paintings and drawings, between 400,000 and 27 million euros, are now being traded at auctions . Nevertheless, Schiele remains in the shadow of Gustav Klimt.

Literature and illustrated books on the Austrian artist genius

Schiele standard work with a representation character-a pricose for collectors and fans

The work of Schiele is one of the important works of early modernity after 1900 and is both classically and timelessly currently in its sensual-body existentialism.

Now, almost a century later, the renowned bags an opulent band: high-quality paper, noble linen cover with a golden privacy-all 221 paintings from 1909-1918 and 146 drawings are included.

The extensive art book impresses in every respect with nine chapters that combine pictures and texts. We witness the exceptional talent and rebellious nature of Schiele, while we experience its intensive aesthetics of transformation - a passionate mix of unstable curiosity and provocative sexual energy.

In addition, the book gives us insights into Schiele's war pictures from 1914 to 1918: Human bodies, portraits and broken natural scenes such as open maps - injured, disfigured, tortured and reorganized.

The art historian and experienced museum specialist Tobias G. Natter , who later grew up in the same region as Schiele, has created an impressive standard work on squint . This work is invaluable for collectors and fans of the artist.

The massive illustrated book is available from Amazon as a bound edition .

Further book recommendations:

• Egon Schiele: The Leopold Collection, Vienna; By Rudolf Leopold, Elisabeth Leopold
• Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele (1965), Guggenheim Exhibition Catalog / by Thomas Messer
• Egon Schiele, by Klaus Albrecht Schroder
• Egon Schiele, by Erwin Mitsch

Sources, references and further information:

• The Art Story , Egon Schiele , https://www.theartstory.org/artist/schiele-egon/
• Frankfurter Rundschau , the body, a battlefield , https://www.fr.de/kultur/kunst/koerper-schlachtfeld-11032975.html
• SWR2 manuscript , the artist Egon Schiele "Enfant Terrible" of classic modernism - by Martina Conrad
• Sonntagsblatt of the Evangelical Press Association for Bavaria EV (EPV), Schweinfurter Museum shows Egon Schiele's exhibition "Freiheit des Ichs", https://www.sonntagsblatt.de/artikel/kultur/scheinfurter-museum-stellen-egon-schieles-freiheit-des-ichs