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Lot Essay
Standing frontally to meet the viewer’s gaze, the female protagonist of Egon Schiele’s Stehender Akt mit Draperietuch appears provocatively poised to reveal her nudity. While this frontal pose is reminiscent of depictions of women from classical antiquity and beyond, the drapery tempering her otherwise brazen nakedness, the handling of the image is defiantly modern. With his assured, single pencil outline, contrasted with passages of richly colored gouache and watercolor, Schiele has masterfully distilled the powerful attitude of this female figure. Executed in 1911, this work dates from an important turning point in the artist’s career, as he liberated himself from the influence of Gustav Klimt and began to pursue the idiosyncratic style and subject matter that would set his work apart from his contemporaries in turn-of-the-century Austria.
Rendered with luxuriant, multi-hued blue strokes that meet the dark purples and violets of the woman’s stockinged-leg, the depiction of the drapery in the present work demonstrates the great leap Schiele had made at this time in the mediums of watercolor and gouache. He repeatedly played with both of these types of paint during this period, achieving a sense of control particularly over the unpredictable quality of watercolor.
As the present work shows, Schiele attained a highly nuanced palette, with subtle variations in tone, opacity and finish as the washes of watercolor and gouache move across the sheet. Contrasting with the expressive pencil outline to describe the slender, statuesque form of the figure’s body, these passages of richly colored pigment seem to shimmer, creating an almost iridescent effect. Flashes of rose pink and coral tones highlight the woman’s pouted lips, breasts and seductively half-closed eyes. Her long dark hair, flowing down below her waist, heightens the striking delicacy of her body.
A number of perceptively captured nuanced details—the woman’s raised eyebrow, left hip bone extended as she rests her weight on the other hip, as well as the just visible stocking she is wearing on her left leg—suggest that this figure is very much aware of her sexuality, returning the artist—or the viewer’s—gaze with a powerful assertiveness. This sense of self-assured femininity frequently appeared in Schiele’s female nudes of this time, a departure from the traditional conventions of portraying this subject in previous centuries of art.
This portrayal of the female figure in the present work reflects an overall shift in Schiele’s work at this time. Over the course of 1911, the protagonists of Schiele’s art changed. The often more demure nude images that he painted in 1910 transformed to the more sexually direct depictions of models that he began to portray in 1911. These women are more unflinching both in their gaze, often staring out of the picture plane to meet the viewer head on, but also in their poses, as Schiele forged a new form of radical and expressive nude.
Rendered with luxuriant, multi-hued blue strokes that meet the dark purples and violets of the woman’s stockinged-leg, the depiction of the drapery in the present work demonstrates the great leap Schiele had made at this time in the mediums of watercolor and gouache. He repeatedly played with both of these types of paint during this period, achieving a sense of control particularly over the unpredictable quality of watercolor.
As the present work shows, Schiele attained a highly nuanced palette, with subtle variations in tone, opacity and finish as the washes of watercolor and gouache move across the sheet. Contrasting with the expressive pencil outline to describe the slender, statuesque form of the figure’s body, these passages of richly colored pigment seem to shimmer, creating an almost iridescent effect. Flashes of rose pink and coral tones highlight the woman’s pouted lips, breasts and seductively half-closed eyes. Her long dark hair, flowing down below her waist, heightens the striking delicacy of her body.
A number of perceptively captured nuanced details—the woman’s raised eyebrow, left hip bone extended as she rests her weight on the other hip, as well as the just visible stocking she is wearing on her left leg—suggest that this figure is very much aware of her sexuality, returning the artist—or the viewer’s—gaze with a powerful assertiveness. This sense of self-assured femininity frequently appeared in Schiele’s female nudes of this time, a departure from the traditional conventions of portraying this subject in previous centuries of art.
This portrayal of the female figure in the present work reflects an overall shift in Schiele’s work at this time. Over the course of 1911, the protagonists of Schiele’s art changed. The often more demure nude images that he painted in 1910 transformed to the more sexually direct depictions of models that he began to portray in 1911. These women are more unflinching both in their gaze, often staring out of the picture plane to meet the viewer head on, but also in their poses, as Schiele forged a new form of radical and expressive nude.