Sawmill 1913

Egon Schiele made this striking painting of a sawmill at an unknown date with oil on canvas. Schiele was an Austrian Expressionist painter. In this painting, the building looks sturdy, but also temporary, built from wood on a green hillside underneath a dark mountain range. Wood is stacked and ready to be milled in front. A crude bridge connects the building to a road. In its own time, paintings like this were considered degenerate because they did not conform to accepted standards for realism. When we consider the social conditions that shaped artistic production in the early 20th century we see how the expressionist movement helped shape attitudes to industrialization and what was considered to be beautiful. To study this artwork more deeply, consider other landscapes by Schiele and read period accounts of rural Austria. By looking at history, we can better understand the place of art in society.