Woman with Black Stockings 1912

Egon Schiele made this watercolor and pencil drawing, Woman with Black Stockings, at a time when he was pushing the boundaries of portraiture. The colors are muted, mostly grays and blacks, punctuated by pink. This is artmaking as a kind of raw, emotional processing. The way Schiele uses the watercolor is fascinating. It's thin, almost translucent in places, allowing the paper to breathe, but then he’ll build up these dense, dark areas, like in the black stockings. Look at the lines, how they quiver and shake. It’s like he’s trying to capture not just the form, but the feeling of the figure. There’s a real tension here. Schiele reminds me of Marlene Dumas, another artist who isn't afraid to dig deep into the psyche through portraiture. Both artists show us that a painting can be more than just a picture – it can be a mirror, reflecting our own vulnerabilities and complexities back at us. This piece doesn’t give us easy answers, and that’s what makes it so compelling.