Seated Girl 1910

Egon Schiele made this drawing of a seated girl, with watercolor, and pencil. The color palette is muted, browns and blues, and the marks are tentative and searching. The thin washes of color create a sense of transparency, like looking at something fragile. Schiele doesn't seem too concerned with what’s pretty or classically beautiful. There's a kind of awkwardness in the pose and the way the plaid pattern of her dress is rendered. Look at the girl’s hands, they're not really finished. They’re just sort of suggested, like little claws. That touch is so Schiele. You can see the influence of artists like Gustav Klimt in the decorative elements. But Schiele takes it somewhere else, somewhere more psychologically raw. It's a look, but also a feeling. Schiele's work always leaves you with more questions than answers, and that's part of what makes it so compelling.