Stehender Männlicher Rückenakt 1910

Egon Schiele made this standing male back view with watercolor, it looks like. The color is muted, the strokes are scratchy and alive. I get the feeling he worked fast, trying to catch the way the light falls on the shoulder blades, making them pop. It’s not just a body; it's a feeling—an ache in the back, a twist in the spine. Schiele’s lines give you the feeling of what it’s like to be in a body. I imagine Schiele, in his studio, hunched over this drawing. He’s using these wet washes and dry brushstrokes, trying to get the curve of the neck just right. I bet he’s thinking about mortality, about the fleeting nature of youth, but also about the strength and resilience of the human form. All that brown and ochre he uses is earthy, and makes you think of other artists like Paula Modersohn-Becker who were looking at the body in new ways, too. It’s like they’re all talking to each other across time, figuring out what it means to be human through paint.