Standing Girl c. 1908 - 1909

Egon Schiele made this drawing, *Standing Girl*, with pencil and gouache on paper. Look at how the lines define the figure, they are tentative and searching, capturing a sense of fleeting movement, almost as though Schiele is trying to capture something that exists in his mind's eye. The girl's hands, clasped lightly around the plaid scarf, seem fragile and delicate but the plaid itself feels raw and unfinished, as if applied in blocks. The overall effect is incredibly powerful. This is a portrait, but it is also so much more than that. It feels like it is a raw nerve, a piece of exposed emotion. Something about the way she is looking down reminds me of Klimt, of course, but I wonder what Schiele would have made of someone like Alice Neel, who also managed to capture something of the psychology of the sitter in a portrait. Art is nothing if not a conversation across time, isn't it?