Schiele

Egon Schiele (1890-1918) - along with Oskar Kokoschka - is the painter who had the most long-lasting influence on the Vienna art scene after the great era of Klimt came to a close. After a short flirtation with Klimt’s style, Schiele soon questioned the aesthetic orientation to the beautiful surface of the Viennese Art Nouveau with his rough and not easily accessible paintings.

Many contemporaries found Schiele’s expressive nudes and self-portraits, with their strange movements and morbid colours, to be ugly and even morally objectionable--criticism which culminated in criminalizing the painter as ’obscene’ and resulted in 1912 in an indictment and short jail sentence. However, not even his harshest critics could dispute the artist’s extraordinary drawing talent.

 

About the Series:
Each book in TASCHEN’s Basic Art Series features:

• a detailed chronological summary of the life and oeuvre of the artist, covering his or her cultural and historical importance
• a concise biography
• approximately 100 colour illustrations with explanatory captions