Junge Mutter 1914

Egon Schiele painted "Young Mother," with oil on canvas, and you can almost feel the artist wrestling with the paint, coaxing these figures out of the darkness. There's a rawness here, a kind of vulnerable exposure. I wonder what it was like for Schiele, a man, to approach this subject? The mother’s body is all angles and awkwardness, her arms raised as if warding off the world. And that baby, clinging to her, a spot of bright red against her pale skin. He doesn’t prettify or soften anything, does he? It’s like he’s saying, "Here it is, life in all its messy, complicated glory." There's something about the way he uses color, too—the muddy browns and grays, punctuated by these flashes of intensity. Schiele always seems to be pushing the boundaries, challenging our notions of what’s beautiful or acceptable. He makes you feel something, even if you can’t quite name it, which is maybe the best thing an artist can do.