Edge of Town (Krumau Town Crescent) 1918

Egon Schiele made this painting called "Edge of Town (Krumau Town Crescent)" with oil on canvas. It’s a stacking up of houses, a bit like a precarious Jenga game, but with paint! The surfaces are fascinating. It’s not about a smooth finish; you can see the textures, the way the brush has been dragged and dabbed. There’s a rawness, an honesty about the application of paint. Look at the way the colors crash into each other. Schiele isn’t trying to blend them perfectly; he lets them have their say, side by side, creating a vibrating energy. There’s a juicy, messy quality about the brown strokes that make up the background, while thin black lines are used to delineate the buildings. The tension between these different textural approaches gives the piece its dynamism. The push and pull of the brushstrokes suggests a world in constant flux, and maybe that's the point. Like with Klimt, who Schiele was close to, everything's connected but fragmented.