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Lot Essay
Liegender Akt mit schwarzen Strümpfen belongs to the group of drawings that marks Schiele's transition from more demure nude images of his sister Gerti from 1910 to bolder, sexually erotic depictions that highlight the primal expressiveness of his personal idiom. The sitter, a slim brunette, was one of a series of anonymous models that Schiele employed at this time. She sinks into the vacuum of the page as if into bedsheets, suggesting her intimacy with the artist. Her direct gaze and open presentation of her naked body are a stark contrast to Gerti's turned head and closed eyes, or the sensually coiled, slumbering Danae by his mentor, Gustav Klimt (Galerie Würthle, Vienna). Commenting on this confrontation, Jane Kallir notes: "They stare at the viewer much as they must have stared at Schiele, and their self-protective reserve or dreamy puzzlement become adjuncts to their sexuality. Once again, Schiele's own responses--his fascination and confusion--have been intertwined with those of his model. However the model has become a more integral part of the exploratory process rather than just a faceless projection of the artist's fantasies" (in Egon Schiele: Life and Work, New York, 2000, p. 60).
Schiele suggestively adapts the sitter's body to highlight her sexual desirability and availability, tinting her mouth and genitalia for visual emphasis and adding a dark gouache "halo" at her midsection that, like a corset, simultaneously exaggerates the narrowness of her waist and the curves of her hips and breasts. Her ambiguously truncated extremities contribute a slightly unreal quality to her sensuous repose, and transform her into a sexual object. This delicate balance of distortion and beauty in Schiele's work often surprised his contemporaries, such as the critic A. F. Seligman, who described his pictures as "hideous-fantastic caricatures," but also conceded that "in these grotesque portrayals there is nonetheless a sophisticated, playful virtuosity of line, a highly idiosyncratic taste for color, and a strong feeling for effect" (quoted in ibid, p. 144). Not surprisingly, drawings such as the present work were collected as erotica, although this displeased Schiele. However, the hallmark of his drawings from this period is a blatant engagement with taboo subjects such as masturbation and other sexual acts. These unabashedly erotic works and the stream of young women and girls who posed from them eventually led to his arrest and imprisonment in 1912 for alleged immoral acts.
The model's provocative display in the present work suggests that Schiele invested his drawings with the informal poses and blatant sexual display found in popular pornography. Whereas many of his models from 1910 are completely naked, Schiele furnishes this female figure with black stockings, transforming her from a timeless nude into a fetishized modern woman. Addressing this topic, Klaus Albrecht Schröder notes: "... the role of the so-called low arts of caricature, and especially of erotic and pornographic photography, should not be overlooked in the genesis of Schiele's nudes. With a few exceptions based on erotic paintings... the audacious poses of Schiele's models have their precedents in cheap, mass-produced erotic photographs. This genre, initially legitimized under the heading of 'study' material for artists, was classified as indecent from the 1870s onward because it had blatantly departed from the canon of academically sanctioned poses" (in Egon Schiele: Eros and Passion, New York, 2006, p. 112).
Schiele suggestively adapts the sitter's body to highlight her sexual desirability and availability, tinting her mouth and genitalia for visual emphasis and adding a dark gouache "halo" at her midsection that, like a corset, simultaneously exaggerates the narrowness of her waist and the curves of her hips and breasts. Her ambiguously truncated extremities contribute a slightly unreal quality to her sensuous repose, and transform her into a sexual object. This delicate balance of distortion and beauty in Schiele's work often surprised his contemporaries, such as the critic A. F. Seligman, who described his pictures as "hideous-fantastic caricatures," but also conceded that "in these grotesque portrayals there is nonetheless a sophisticated, playful virtuosity of line, a highly idiosyncratic taste for color, and a strong feeling for effect" (quoted in ibid, p. 144). Not surprisingly, drawings such as the present work were collected as erotica, although this displeased Schiele. However, the hallmark of his drawings from this period is a blatant engagement with taboo subjects such as masturbation and other sexual acts. These unabashedly erotic works and the stream of young women and girls who posed from them eventually led to his arrest and imprisonment in 1912 for alleged immoral acts.
The model's provocative display in the present work suggests that Schiele invested his drawings with the informal poses and blatant sexual display found in popular pornography. Whereas many of his models from 1910 are completely naked, Schiele furnishes this female figure with black stockings, transforming her from a timeless nude into a fetishized modern woman. Addressing this topic, Klaus Albrecht Schröder notes: "... the role of the so-called low arts of caricature, and especially of erotic and pornographic photography, should not be overlooked in the genesis of Schiele's nudes. With a few exceptions based on erotic paintings... the audacious poses of Schiele's models have their precedents in cheap, mass-produced erotic photographs. This genre, initially legitimized under the heading of 'study' material for artists, was classified as indecent from the 1870s onward because it had blatantly departed from the canon of academically sanctioned poses" (in Egon Schiele: Eros and Passion, New York, 2006, p. 112).