Seated child 1918

Egon Schiele’s painting "Seated Child" shows a child and was likely made with oil on canvas. Looking at the way Schiele has applied the paint, it’s easy to imagine how the painting came into being—one mark laid carefully next to another, shifting and emerging slowly through trial, error, and intuition. I can almost sympathize with Schiele and what it must have been like to make this. What was he thinking? See the child's white dress, how the paint is thick and almost sculptural? Schiele’s broad brushstrokes capture the child's gesture. The child has her hand up and seems unsure. It is not a realistic painting, yet you can feel the humanity of the sitter through the sensitivity of the brushwork. Schiele’s paintings speak to expression and emotion. He is like a sibling to other painters of angst, like Edvard Munch. Artists are constantly in conversation, you know? And it is a conversation that happens across time. It is an exchange of ideas that inspires creativity.