The Development of Egon Schiele’s Line

Walburga Neuzil in Black Stockings, 1913. Public domain.

Although Egon Schiele had a short life, he managed to create more than 3000 drawings and 300 canvases between 1908 and 1918. His intensive work led to the rapid development of his technique and expression. He is famous with his skills as a draughtsman — as such, the line occupies an exceptional place in his oeuvre.

Egon Schiele (1890–1918) was one of the pioneers of the Austrian expressionism at the beginning of the 20th Century. Depictions of the human body (and soul) is one of the firmest motives in his work. A contemporary of Sigmund Freud, he shared a commitment to the psyche that found its first representatives in Vienna in the early twentieth century. Schiele’s artistic development and personal life were expressionist and intense — he worked with impressive energy and speed, was arrested for the offensive and scandalous aspect of his art and died too early, only twenty-eight years old, a victim of the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918. His work ranges from lyrical but mysteriously uninhabited cityscapes to dark, gloomy and ambiguous allegories. Although his creative path was quite short, within this limited time, Schiele delved into the creation of an extremely distinctive style, which was built on one main foundation and mean of expression — the line.