Two Girls on a Fringed Blanket 1911

Egon Schiele made "Two Girls on a Fringed Blanket" using watercolor and pencil sometime around the turn of the century. The brushstrokes are so direct and raw, and the colours are muted and earthy. I wonder if Schiele mixed his own paint? It looks like he applied it directly to the paper, building up layers of colour. Can you feel the movement and energy in the way the lines and shapes come together? He was probably thinking about bodies, and how to represent them, how to get at something essential beneath the surface. The composition is so unusual, the figures squashed into the frame, it’s strange and intense. I think he's in dialogue with other artists like Edvard Munch and Gustav Klimt, all trying to find new ways of expressing emotion and experience through painting. Each stroke is a record of a decision, a moment of intuition and feeling, inviting us to bring our own experiences and interpretations to the work.