The Artist's Sister, Melanie 1908

Egon Schiele made this painting of his sister Melanie with oil on canvas in 1908. I love the muted color scheme: black, grey, white, peach. It's what makes the painting feel so intimate, but also a little unnerving. You get the feeling he began with his sister's eyes and they seem to blaze right through the gray veil covering most of her face. Her gaze is direct, intense. I imagine Schiele must have been trying to capture her essence, her inner self, that thing that only a brother would know, and the painting feels like a struggle to contain her. It reminds me of other artists who paint their family, like Alice Neel. There’s a similar quality of psychological intensity, a sense of really seeing the person, not just representing them. It is like they are trying to capture the inner life of a person and how it reflects on their face. Artists are always looking at each other, borrowing, stealing, riffing off each other's work. Painting is like one big, long conversation across time.