Self Portrait with Arm Twisting above Head 1910

This is Egon Schiele’s Self-Portrait with Arm Twisting Above Head, a work made with gouache and pencil on paper. Schiele, who lived in Vienna during a period of great cultural and intellectual change, used his art to explore the anxieties and complexities of human experience, particularly his own. Schiele confronts us with his raw vulnerability. His body is contorted, and his intense gaze forces us into an uncomfortable intimacy. There’s something about the way he renders his own body – almost grotesque, yet undeniably human – that speaks to a deeper, more profound understanding of self. The twisted arm and hand gripping his head suggest a mind in torment, a struggle for control. Was Schiele deliberately challenging the norms of beauty and representation, daring to show us the unvarnished truth of his inner self? In a society that often demands conformity, this self-portrait is a powerful statement of individuality, a refusal to be anything other than authentically himself.