A Surprising Artwork from Egon Schiele

The shimmering waters of the Harbour of Trieste

Hafen von Triest (1907) by Egon Schiele. Oil and pencil on card. 25 × 18 cm. Private collection. Image source Wikimedia Commons

When you enter the world of artist Egon Schiele, you enter a place of texture, impressions, sensitive lines and nervous crinkles.

As a prominent Austrian artist working in the early 20th century, Schiele’s art became celebrated for its honest portrayal of psychological vulnerability and the power of individual expression.

There is a certain raw eloquence to his best-known works: distorted bodies, lines that zigzag, blocks of colour that start and end abruptly, all conveyed with a seasoning of angst.

Detail of ‘Self-portrait’ (1912) by Egon Schiele. Pencil, watercolour and tempera on paper. 46.5 × 31.5 cm. Private collection. Image source Wikimedia Commons

Schiele’s works are not hushed. They murmur, groan, wince, and sometimes growl. This is one of the reasons that his images are not easy to define: they move according to the artist’s unsettled hand. They are direct impressions of his nervous system.

What gives Schiele’s work much of its taut energy is his use of line. He was an artist who painted and drew with brute contours and unwavering definition. His lines seem to rummage around within themselves — marks and boundaries that reveal forms as if they have burrowed through the paper…