Second Edition
The uncompromising intensity of Schiele's art has come to be recognized as prophetic, both in its anxiety-ridden content and in its revolutionary forms, of much of the imagery of the past sixty-five years.
Eschewing traditional aesthetics and soon forsaking the decorative lure of art nouveau, Schiele gave form to irrational urges and pitiless clinical observation, thus creating a mode of expressionism which set him apart from his contemporaries and which still speaks to us with undiminished modernity. Born in 1890, he was active in Vienna for eight short, hectic years until his early death in 1918 - the same years in which Freud explored the subconscious and in which the old European order collapsed for ever. The erotic character of his drawings provoked a great deal of hostility from the Establishment and earned him some weeks in prison before, ironically, he was employed as a war artist. A generation was to pass before his stature was recognized and today his reputation is firmly established.
The present volume gives a balanced selection from Schiele's paintings and drawings in chronological order - nudes, portraits, allegories and landscapes. In the text the author examines the character and development of this strange and long-neglected artist and his points of contact with Munch, Rodin, Klimt and other contemporaries. The plates comprise 80 full-page reproductions, in addition there are 81 smaller reproductions in black and white and 12 portrait photographs of the artist. An extensive bibliography is also included.
