Seated female nude with elbows propped 1914

Egon Schiele made this drawing of a seated female nude in Vienna. Look at that black line wrapping around and outlining the body, it feels raw, immediate, like he’s trying to capture something fleeting. I wonder what Schiele was thinking as he made the piece. It's like he's trying to record an emotional state as much as a physical one. The ink bleeds into the paper a little which makes the line less certain. It adds to the overall feeling of anxiety. The way he renders the hands, all twisted together, that's a kind of gesture that speaks volumes. It's economical but loaded. Schiele was clearly trying to capture something beyond just appearances; it's like he's after the inner life of his subject. His distinctive style influenced later artists, paving the way for new forms of expression. Artists like Schiele are in a perpetual dialogue, building on one another's experiments.