Stadtansicht 1906

Curator: Here we have Egon Schiele’s "Stadtansicht," created around 1906. The work combines watercolor and colored pencil to render this cityscape. Editor: It's a wistful piece, don’t you think? A bit melancholic in its hazy light. It seems to portray a very vulnerable view, but one from which we can appreciate and study. Curator: Absolutely. The combined use of watercolor and colored pencil allows Schiele to construct layers of detail. Looking closely, you see how the roofs, for instance, are built from many short, repeated lines and marks. It really does blur the lines, dare I say, between 'high art' and drawing from a working-class lifestyle. The making is part of the subject here. Editor: True. I find it quite interesting how Schiele chooses to depict the architecture. It's almost like a confrontation between residential life and industrial elements: look at how the buildings intersect with the factory and smokestack looming on the horizon. It reminds me of early twentieth-century discourse about class and progress and what that "progress" entailed at a very real, human level. Curator: Yes, it almost industrializes our understanding of the "romantic." And the rooftops repeat across the composition, conveying this idea of manufactured construction. Notice, also, the horizon line. It isn't the flat view of landscape, but has texture created by these subtle layers of watercolor. Editor: The textures in "Stadtansicht" almost become characters. If you think of the period that followed, marked by trauma and upheaval, this painting could almost serve as an unsettling premonition of the transformations about to impact Schiele’s Austria. There's this tension between the aesthetic beauty and something vaguely ominous. Curator: An incredible intersection of materials and subject to inspire those types of cultural perspectives. Editor: It does invite that conversation, doesn’t it? An opportunity for us to look through time. Curator: Agreed. Let's proceed to the next artwork!