River Landscape 1913

Egon Schiele made this River Landscape with oil on canvas, and what strikes me is how he's carving out this space with color and line. It's not just about depicting a scene but really getting into the dirt of it, you know? There's this one part, near the bottom left, where the paint is almost scrubbed on, creating this raw, textured patch. It’s like he’s digging into the canvas itself, revealing something hidden beneath the surface. The browns and ochres dominate, but then you see these little flecks of red. They pop, like tiny sparks of energy. Schiele's landscapes often feel like portraits, and you can see a connection to someone like Edvard Munch, who also used landscapes to express inner states. Neither are trying to give us a literal view, they're more interested in the feeling of being in a place, in a body, in a world that’s always shifting. Art’s a conversation, not a lecture.