Krumau on the Molde, The Small City 1912

Egon Schiele painted this town, Krumau on the Molde, with oils on canvas. It’s so dark, you can hardly make anything out, yet, at the same time, it’s so explicit in its structural detail. I’m thinking about how he applied these thin washes of colour, almost like watercolour, to pick out these insistent, upward thrusting rooftops. I imagine him pacing back and forth, thinking: how can I convey the feeling of living in this particular place? Maybe he even felt a bit trapped there. See how the buildings are clustered together, pushing up against each other? The colour palette is earthy, with greens, browns, and creams, which lends the painting a kind of melancholy, like he’s trying to capture its mood, as much as its appearance. I bet he was looking at Gustav Klimt, maybe even Cezanne, trying to figure out how they did it, how to find his own voice through paint. It’s like he’s wrestling with the weight of art history, trying to find his own place in the conversation.