Krumau on the Molde

Egon Schiele painted Krumau on the Molde, at an unknown date, using oil on canvas. The way the paint is applied is like a physical act, almost violent, but also sensitive, each stroke a decision, a feeling, laid bare for us to see. The texture is rough, uneven, you can almost feel the bristles of the brush digging into the canvas. Look at how the dark lines carve out the shapes of the buildings, like he’s building up the image from the inside out. The yellow house seems to be glowing in the centre, the light from inside makes the house breathe. Schiele's work reminds me a little of Oskar Kokoschka, they both have this raw, expressive energy, but Schiele’s got a bit more angst, a bit more of that fin-de-siècle Viennese vibe. Art's not about answers, right? It's about questions, about feeling, about seeing the world in a new way, about embracing the messy, beautiful ambiguity of it all.