| Artist: | Schiele, Egon |
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|---|---|---|
| Title of Work: | Self-Portrait Nude, Facing Front | |
| Date of Work: | 1910 | |
| Nationality: | Austrian | |
| Context: | Vienna | |
| Movement: | Viennese Expressionism | |
| Medium: | ||
| Subject: self-portrait stripped completely bare; the naked self. Art as painfully autobiographical and confessional. Revealing the psyche means exposing the body. Overbearing physical presence of the body. A wish to penetrate the outer self, as if seen through an X-ray; dissecting the self. Style: the Art Nouveau decorative line now cuts like a knife, razor sharp; it goes kinky and angular as Schiele shifts to an edgy, brittle contour that elbows itself around the naked body. Nothing flows. He looks convulsed in a spasm. His hair stands on end in punk fashion, as if he were being electricuted. The skin looks flayed, leaving only the raw meat of the flesh. The interior of the body is oddly sectioned, but not in a decorative way. Schiele is decidedly anti-decorative. Surrounding the outer contour of the figure is a body halo or astral glow; Schiele's psychic vibrations or aura (inspired by Rudolf Steiner's Theosophy). The naked body is not idealized. No setting or locale; the self in the void. There is nothing beyond the self (solisism). Painful cropping of the figure at the thighs. Odd censoring of the hand gesture (in later self-portraits, the artist will actually show himself masturbating). A fascinated look at the self experiencing orgasm. Auto-erotic. Context: Vienna, the city of Freud, becomes the backdrop for the transition from Klimt's elaborate surfaces to Schiele's uncovering of the self. In the move from facade to psyche, we shift from Art Nouveau to Expressionism; the sons against the fathers. Expressionist rejection of the facade. Schiele paints from inside out. What emerges is the psychological portrait. The inner state of the sitter is brought out to the surface; highly charged in emotional energy and intensity; unmasking the traditional portrait to reveal the naked self. | ||
