Realism In Egon Schiele's Embrace

One of my many influences is rooted in the tradition of German expressionism. One could look at anything from this era of art and see it as a sort of “embellished realism.” Ostensibly natural forms are twisted and contorted to fit the artist’s liking, taking a variety of shapes and colors, seemingly taking inspiration from primarily impressionism, surrealism and cubism to create a style that would influence the fields of illustration and graphic design.

In particular, one of the leading artists from this movement was a man named Egon Schiele. Schiele lived during and died just before the end of World War 2. His figures had a blemished, twisted quality to their proportions and in particularly how he utilized lines to define the contours and appearance of his subjects.

This was in no small part due to his fascination with death and disease, and the subjects of his artwork have thin, emancipated bodies that reflect the wartime period, when disease was particularly common and his home country was under the control of the German Empire. One of his last works is presented in the book, “Portrait of Painter Paris von Gutersloh. (pg. 124)” It encapusulates his viewpoint before his death, painting his subject with discolored skin, a thin frame and unglamorous poses and clothing. The line he uses has a flattening effect not dissimilar to comic book artwork, almost looking as though his subject is trapped in the frame rather than being a mere representation of the subject. It is quite intentionally the antithesis to French art traditions, as the angular, sharp lines are the opposite of the soft, curved, unrepresented line that French artists often used. Whereas the French were all about luxury, the German expressionists were about pain and struggle. They represented the long-standing struggles of the common man, such as disease, depression and despair. It seemed distinctly different.
Schiele’s most famous works of art were arguably his collection of figure paintings that he had been doing throughout his short career as an artist.

Schiele’s “Embrace (124)” is a perfect encapsulation of his main style of art. The two figures appear engaged in some kind of sexual play, yet it feels completely devoid of passion or love. This is, of course, very intentional. The two figures have blank, simple faces. Their proportions are somewhat realistic and distinctly unidealized. Their skin is as pale as chalk, which in artwork implies disease or even death. One could probably gander that these two figures are in some sort of loveless relationship that had once been exciting and new, but now the honeymoon phase has long-since passed and they seem fairly bored with what is happening. They’re clearly struggling to find any intimacy in the situation now that their emotional connection has gone cold. Human connection is one of the most important aspects of being human, yet it’s also quite transient, all too fleeting or easy to lose. Schiele seems to encapsulate that idea through taking something that normally implies love and connection to depict a desperate need for both when there seemingly is

none.
Schiele stands as one of those artists whose influence eclipsed the length of his career. He died fairly young from Spanish influenza, something quite preventable today and rather ironic due to his fixation on disease. He seemed to be a symbol of how hopelessly bleak life was during the period he lived in, and died before he could see it get better. Death wasn’t so easily shrugged off as it is today, and those lucky enough to dodge it could only help but look on as the world around them seemed to collapse. Schiele captured the emotional and physical torture that humans could endure, and examined our deepest insecurities in his contorted figures and realistic situations that he put them in.