Semi Nude, Back View 1918

Egon Schiele made this drawing, Semi Nude, Back View, on paper with ink. The immediacy of the line is so apparent, the confidence, and also the uncertainty, it's as if you are watching the artist deciding where to go next in real time. I love that feeling of provisionality, of process. The ink is a dark, dry stroke, and the thinness of it makes every contour feel so exposed. Look at the figure's left arm, how the lines come off the shoulder, then stop abruptly, and then start again further down to describe the elbow. In its imperfection, this is such an evocative rendering of a physical form. This reminds me of some of Picasso's ink drawings - they share a similar approach to line as a record of embodied experience. For me, these works suggest that art is more about questioning than answering.