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View from the Drawing Classroom, Schiele 1905

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For this project, I have decided to study the life and the art of Egon Schiele. Schiele was an artist who lived a short life, but in that time created a wide range of unique artwork that stood out and left a lasting impact. Born in 1890 in a small Austrian town and passing in 1918 at just the age of 28, Schiele took an interest in art from a young age and got into the Vienna Academy of High Arts at 16. His father, who had passed away when Egon was 14, wanted him to go to a polytechnic school but Schiele insisted on applying for art school anyways. It is there where he and his art caught the eye of famous expressionist painter Klimt, and the two formed something of a father-son like bond. (Wilkin)

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Standing Girl in a Plaid Garment, Schiele 1909

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Klimt had a lasting impact on Schiele’s art, and as we can see from viewing his artworks through the years his style evolved from studies of landscapes and simple portraits to mostly figure paintings of women and self portraits after he had met Klimt’s influence. Specifically, around 1909-1910, we can see the way Klimt paints the female figure in Schiele’s artworks like Standing Girl in a Plaid Garment (1909) and Woman with Black Hat (1909). "It is impossible to imagine Schiele's signature tics... without Klimt's example." (Naves) (Wilkins)

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Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I, Gustav Klimt 1907

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Portraiture done by Gustav Klimt - note the similarities in Schiele's style at the time vs. Klimt's.

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Self-Portrait with Black Vase and Spread Fingers, Schiele 1911

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Around the middle of his short career is where we begin to see his signature style blossom- long, almost grotesquely exaggerated limbs with unusual color combinations that helped the viewer feel and see the emotions in each figure he painted. His self-portraits contained the highest level of these contortions, with long, gangly limbs and stretched fingers like in Self-Portrait with Black Vase and Spread Fingers (1911). An excerpt from an article written describing an exhibit on Schiele located in New York states that "Schiele’s exploration of corporeal form quite often bordered on the grotesque, a point his contemporary critics regularly noted, given his propensity to visually twist, shorten, elongate, or seemingly break the bodies of his sitters." (Timpano)

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Around the end of his career, we really start to see his art solidify literally and figuratively as much more of his paintings begin to feel more composed, and with his marriage to Edith Harms we see a lot more personal and emotional artwork coming from Schiele. Unfortunately, however, just as his wife was expecting their first child together and Schiele’s career in art was beginning to fully take off, Edith died of the Spanish flu. She took Schiele with her just 3 days later, putting a tragic end to the story of his life.

"Egon Schiele moved on 5th July 1918 to his new studio on Wattmanngasse 6, Vienna. His wife Edith, who was expecting a child, died from the Spanish influenza... Three days later Egon Schiele’s life was also extinguished" (Resnik)

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Edith Schiele on her Deathbed, Schiele 1918

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This is the last known artwork done by Egon Schiele, done just moments away from his wife Edith (featured in the drawing) passing away, and only a few days before he passed away as well.

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Seated Woman with Bent Knee, Schiele 1917

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I chose to try and recreate Schiele’s art style for this project, because despite his history being a little morally gray at some points (painting his little sister nude and getting arrested for drawing other young girls nude), his art style is still very admirable and stands out from other artists from this time. I appreciate the way he was able to convey expression and mood through body language and the contortions of his figures, while still maintaining a clear understanding of human anatomy.

I also admire the fact that plenty of his artworks may be considered to have a bit of an unfinished look to them to some people, as he had stated that he liked to paint his subjects quickly to not lose the essence of the pose and the energy. As an artist I know that it can be difficult to do this without failing to keep your pose and figure comprehensive.

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For my first attempt at trying to create a work of art in Schiele's style, I chose to take a photo of myself and attempt to recreate the exaggerated limbs often seen in Egon's artwork. I believe that this was semi-successful, although one thing that I believe this recreation is lacking is the fluidity and movement that we see in Schiele's portraits. The pose that was chosen lacks much movement and it is not a very dynamic pose, so the piece ended up feeling a tad bit still especially in comparison to Schiele's works.

Naturally, there will be some disparity between my recreations and his art just due to the fact that he was a seasoned artist with years of experience and I am still learning, but despite this I wanted to push harder to create something that captured that lifelike feeling from his art.

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In this second piece that I did mimicking Schiele's style, I did as I said and tried to choose a pose that was taken from an angle instead of straight on like the first reference pose. This artwork as well as the last artwork also feature watercolor paint and pen to ink the lines with, because upon studying Schiele's works I found that he often used these materials espeically when just doing quick portraits.

One thing that I found suprisingly difficult was trying to decide how to depict myself, as I found upon studying his works that he often painted his subjects and himself differently. His subjects still contained that element of distortion that is signature for Schiele, and they still often had exaggerated limbs and sharp edges protruding where they dont normally protrude. However, in most of the portraits he had done of himself, the proportions were definitely stretched to a much higher degree and the poses were much more unnatural and unnerving. So I had to make the decision of whether I wanted to depict myself as him in his self portraits, or as one of his subjects. In the end, I believe I somehow ended up merging both together.

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This third piece remains technically unfinished, as I wanted to focus more on recreating the anatomy of Schieles artwork rather than having to focus too hard on the coloring of the piece. I do think that adding color and pen would tie this closer to Schiele's style, however. In this piece, I really tried to emphasize making the hands appear entirely too long, and I tried to copy how Egon liked to exaggerate facial features almost to the point of them feeling like a charicature. This is definitely way closer to the style that Egon would use to create his own self portraits, as they often appear as a critizicim of his own appearance done by himself through his art.

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Reclining Woman With Green Stockings, Schiele 1917

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In conclusion, this project has shaped the way in which I view Egon Schiele's art by giving me a broader view of how his art was created. In addition, researching his art has also given me a look into his life and history that I would not have gotten otherwise. Attempting to recreate his portraiture style helped me to gain better insight on what his process typically was like, and I would definitely do the same thing for other artists as well.