Reclining Girl on a Pillow 1910

Egon Schiele made this gouache on paper, Reclining Girl on a Pillow, and the marks are so raw you can feel the energy in the room. The color palette is so expressive, so full of emotion, like he's squeezing the paint right out of his heart. Looking closely, the texture of the paint is almost like skin, thin in places, thick in others, and the way he's used those blues and reds to define the form, it's all so visceral. There is something incredibly powerful about the red of the hands, they look claw like and animalistic. It's like he's not just painting a girl, he's painting a feeling, an experience. You can see how Schiele was so influenced by artists like Gustav Klimt, but he took it to a whole new level, pushing the boundaries of what painting could be, reminding us that art is not just about what we see, but how we feel.