Austrian painter Egon Schiele was one of the most notable Expressionist painters coming to rise in the early 20th century .Born in 1890 Schiele managed to affirm his legacy as an artist despite his early, and tragic death at the hands of the Spanish flu where he died at 28 years of age. He is known for his extremely unique and stylized figures that have sparked as much adoration as they have controversy.
Very daring for its time, Schiele’s grotesque portrayal of human anatomy was not always as acclaimed as it is today years after his death. His figures demonstrated a very dark and perverse view of humans, complete with disfigured and emaciated bodies alongside perverse, strongly sexualized themes. Breaking fee from the precision and embodiment of beauty so heavily fabricated in the Renaissance, Schiele’s work was not concerned with portraying the body in an accurate sense, but in one that best portrayed his own feelings and views of humans as imperfect. Taking this mentality to the extreme, Schiele’s figures are easily recognizable for their sickly colors and skeletal appearance, often leaving viewers somewhat disturbed and violated, and yet captivated at the same time. Inspired by his willingness to find beauty in the imperfections of our bodies, I have taken it upon myself to adapt my own drawing style to include some qualities of his own.
Coincidentally while in the midst of being completely obsessed with this artist, our class had begun reading Beloved. While unrelated in the obvious sense of visual art differing from literature, the similarities for me come from the portrayal of Schiele’s figures compared to author Toni Morrison’s characters in the novel. Much like Schiele’s portraits portray disfigured people, the character’s in Beloved too are full of disfigurements and distortions, whether they be mental, physical, emotional, or all of the above. A firm believer in the idea that our imperfections are one of our most substantial qualities, I applaud both Schiele and Morrison for not shying away from portraying humans in what I believe to be the fashion most true to ourselves.
Out of the characters of Beloved, Sethe (the story’s protagonist) best embodies what I refer to as a “broken” character. An escaped slave in the 1800’s, Seth’s past is filled with pain and grief attributed to being dehumanized beyond belief at the hands of her Masters. Bearing physical deformities such as the severe tree-like scars she received from being whipped as a slave. Sethe also bears intense psychological trauma. Undoubtedly the breaking point of Sethe occurs when she slits the throat of her infant daughter in order to spare the child from being captured and forced to live through the same hell she did while being a slave. While Sethe feels is tortured by the guilt of the infanticide, she never once stays from her believe that it was the right decision, and that her murder was an act of extreme love. As a reader, it is difficult to put a label on Sethe as “good” or “bad, “functional” or “dysfunctional,” because the character is as much a contradiction to us as she is to herself. A product of the horrors of Slavery, Sethe is a in fact a broken person, and just like the figures in Egon Schiele’s work she has the severe internal and external disfigurements to prove it.
Very daring for its time, Schiele’s grotesque portrayal of human anatomy was not always as acclaimed as it is today years after his death. His figures demonstrated a very dark and perverse view of humans, complete with disfigured and emaciated bodies alongside perverse, strongly sexualized themes. Breaking fee from the precision and embodiment of beauty so heavily fabricated in the Renaissance, Schiele’s work was not concerned with portraying the body in an accurate sense, but in one that best portrayed his own feelings and views of humans as imperfect. Taking this mentality to the extreme, Schiele’s figures are easily recognizable for their sickly colors and skeletal appearance, often leaving viewers somewhat disturbed and violated, and yet captivated at the same time. Inspired by his willingness to find beauty in the imperfections of our bodies, I have taken it upon myself to adapt my own drawing style to include some qualities of his own.
Coincidentally while in the midst of being completely obsessed with this artist, our class had begun reading Beloved. While unrelated in the obvious sense of visual art differing from literature, the similarities for me come from the portrayal of Schiele’s figures compared to author Toni Morrison’s characters in the novel. Much like Schiele’s portraits portray disfigured people, the character’s in Beloved too are full of disfigurements and distortions, whether they be mental, physical, emotional, or all of the above. A firm believer in the idea that our imperfections are one of our most substantial qualities, I applaud both Schiele and Morrison for not shying away from portraying humans in what I believe to be the fashion most true to ourselves.
Out of the characters of Beloved, Sethe (the story’s protagonist) best embodies what I refer to as a “broken” character. An escaped slave in the 1800’s, Seth’s past is filled with pain and grief attributed to being dehumanized beyond belief at the hands of her Masters. Bearing physical deformities such as the severe tree-like scars she received from being whipped as a slave. Sethe also bears intense psychological trauma. Undoubtedly the breaking point of Sethe occurs when she slits the throat of her infant daughter in order to spare the child from being captured and forced to live through the same hell she did while being a slave. While Sethe feels is tortured by the guilt of the infanticide, she never once stays from her believe that it was the right decision, and that her murder was an act of extreme love. As a reader, it is difficult to put a label on Sethe as “good” or “bad, “functional” or “dysfunctional,” because the character is as much a contradiction to us as she is to herself. A product of the horrors of Slavery, Sethe is a in fact a broken person, and just like the figures in Egon Schiele’s work she has the severe internal and external disfigurements to prove it.