Self Portrait 1910

This is a self-portrait by Egon Schiele, we don't know the date, and the medium isn't specified, but looking at it, I would say it's likely to be pencil or charcoal on paper. Schiele is an artist who’s never afraid to look at himself. What strikes me is how little is actually *there* in the drawing. The head is so much darker than the blank space of the body. He uses colour to model the head, a palette of dark browns, blacks and beiges, using hatching to create the impression of shadow and volume. You can see the way he moves the pencil across the page. Look at how the ears jut out at a different angle than the rest of the head. The line that traces the jaw seems almost unfinished, like he just gave up. His dark eyes are staring right out at us. It almost feels like we're interrupting him. This reminds me of a drawing by Van Gogh, another great artist who made many self portraits, who was concerned with truth above all else. Schiele wants to capture something essential, even if it's not pretty.