The Artist's Sister, Melanie 1908

Egon Schiele painted this of his sister, Melanie, in 1908, and I can see him working out a language of emotion in his painting through some pretty direct mark making. The paint looks like it's been scrubbed on, especially in the greyish white of her headscarf, with the strokes clearly visible. It's like he's building up the form bit by bit. It feels like a process of trying to understand her, not just to represent her, but to really get under her skin. I’m drawn to the way he's rendered her face. Those intense, almost angry eyes staring out at us, framed by those rosy cheeks. It's such a contrast, and it gives her a real presence, a kind of defiance. This raw, almost brutal honesty reminds me of some of the portraits by Lucian Freud, where the paint becomes a way of excavating the inner life of the sitter, exposing their vulnerabilities and their strengths. Schiele's not just painting a likeness, he's capturing a feeling.