Portrait of a Woman 1910

Egon Schiele made this portrait of a woman with pencil and gouache on paper. Look at how linear it is! You know, drawing is like thinking with your hand – or maybe more like feeling your way through a thought. I wonder what it was like for Schiele, sitting there, eyes fixed on his subject. Was he trying to capture her likeness, or something deeper? Did he labour over it or did it all just flow? The texture is rough, immediate. The colours - soft creams, vivid reds, stark blacks - they vibrate against each other. I especially love how he uses these sparse, almost tentative lines to define her form. See how they build up, searching for the right contour, the right angle. And that hat! It's as if he is in conversation with artists like Klimt, but pushing it, making it his own. I see these painters as being in an ongoing dialogue across time. It’s an exchange of ideas that inspires creativity, embracing ambiguity, allowing for multiple interpretations.