Old Gable 1913

Egon Schiele captured this old gable with paint and probably a brush. I’m looking at the diagonal lines and the browns and blues, and I’m imagining him standing there, feeling the weight of this broken structure. It makes me wonder about his mindset. Was he drawn to the decay, the way the lines intersect and create this sort of chaotic beauty? Or was there a sadness, a sense of loss in portraying something so worn down? I see the way the paint is applied in visible strokes; it’s not trying to hide anything. It's like he's saying, "Here it is, in all its imperfect glory." The loose brushstrokes, how they build up the texture of the walls. I can see how this fits into Schiele's wider work. He’s always pushing, always exploring the raw edges of things. It’s like a conversation across time, these painters egging each other on to see what they can get away with, what they can reveal.