Woman in a Green Blouse and Muff 1915

Egon Schiele made this drawing of a "Woman in a Green Blouse and Muff" with paint, probably watercolor and gouache. Look at those loose, scratchy marks. The colours are strange, not naturalistic but jarring and expressive; the green of the blouse is almost acidic against the brown muff and skirt. I love how Schiele doesn't try to smooth things out. You can really see the process of him figuring out the form with these quick, broken lines. Notice the way the paint seems to bleed and stain into the paper, especially around the edges of the figure. And that muff! It's almost like a dark, shapeless void, but it gives the figure a sense of weight and presence. Schiele’s use of unconventional colours and awkward poses reminds me a little of some of Kirchner's portraits, but with a more raw, vulnerable edge. Schiele and Kirchner make paintings where the feeling is more important than the likeness. It's this kind of emotional honesty that makes art so powerful.