Yellow City 1914

Egon Schiele, in his painting "Yellow City," has laid down this landscape with the kind of earthy yellows, ochres, and browns that almost feel like you could eat them. I’m imagining Schiele, in his studio, really wrestling with this thing, layering and scraping, maybe even attacking the surface, trying to tease out the feeling of this city— probably one he knew well. I bet he was thinking about the way the buildings leaned together, a bit claustrophobic, a bit comforting. See how those thin, dark lines carve out the shapes, holding everything in place, but also kind of trembling? And there's something about the way the colors are both muted and intense that makes me think of the early days of Expressionism, when artists were really trying to push paint to its emotional limits. It's like he’s saying, "I'm not just showing you a city; I'm showing you how it feels to be in one, to be part of its density and history." And isn’t that what we all want from a painting, a little bit of that kind of exchange?