Reclining Boy Leaning on His Elbow 1917

Egon Schiele made this drawing, *Reclining Boy Leaning on His Elbow,* sometime before 1918, probably with charcoal or graphite. The lines are jumpy and nervous, which to me says a lot about artmaking itself – it’s a process full of stops and starts, isn’t it? I love how the boy is casually sprawled, like he’s just been caught in a moment of daydreaming. It's a tender drawing, so light and airy with the paper peeking through the strokes. The color is all in the paper, really - that kind of tan that you just can't get with paint. I keep coming back to how Schiele draws the contours of the boy’s jacket. There's a real elegance in the way the lines barely meet, letting the form dissolve back into the ground. It reminds me of Matisse, but with an added layer of anxiety or something... Maybe it's the way he highlights the sharp angles of the boy's face? That's what I love about art; it's an open-ended conversation. There’s no one “right” answer.