Porträt Marie Schiele 1979

Egon Schiele made this drawing, Porträt Marie Schiele, with charcoal. You can see the energy of the charcoal on the page, the movement, and the marks. It's like seeing the ghost of the artist’s hand dance across the surface. Schiele's drawing captures a likeness, but it’s also about the act of looking, feeling, and trying to understand another person, his sister perhaps. I can almost feel Schiele’s concentration, the charcoal stick held tight in his hand, as he built up the shadows and contours. There’s something raw and vulnerable about the exposed lines. It reminds me of other portrait drawings like those by Van Gogh, where the inner life of the sitter seems to bubble up from the page. As artists we are always looking, borrowing, and riffing off each other. We are in an ongoing dialogue across time, and Schiele’s drawing is another voice in that conversation. Painting is embodied expression that is ambiguous. Like life itself.