Self-Portrait with Chinese Lantern Plant

Egon Schiele - Self-Portrait with Chinese Lantern Plant, 1912; 32.2 × 39.8 cm. Leopold Museum, Vienna, Austria

Who was Egon Schiele?

Egon Schiele was an Austrian Expressionist painter. His work is renowned for its intensity and raw eroticism. Schiele is recognized as a pioneer of Expressionism due to the contorted body shapes and emotive lines that define his paintings and drawings. His self-portraits and portraits are among the most outstanding works of the 20th century. They are piercing probes into the psyches and sexuality of the subjects.

Self-Portrait with Chinese Lantern Plant

Egon Schiele had a very prolific year in 1912, which included the development of his expressionistic painting style and a move toward realism. In April 1912, Schiele's strong engagement with himself, life, and the culture of his day would be unexpectedly cut short. In the town of Neulengbach, where he lived with his girlfriend Wally, Schiele was falsely accused of kidnapping a minor and imprisoned for questioning. Although the allegations were quickly dropped, Schiele's creativity and sense of self as an artist were severely damaged. In his Self-Portrait with Chinese Lantern Plant, which depicts an Egon Schiele who is sensitive, self-assured in his talent, and probably at the height of his inventiveness, this is not yet apparent.

One of his final pieces of art before being wrongfully detained for abduction and assaulting a minor is Self-Portrait with Chinese Lantern Plant. The social climate in 1912 was, to put it mildly, conservative. This was especially true in Neulengbach, a little village 30 miles west of Vienna, where Schiele and his lover Wally settled down to live together, and locals were literally waiting for him to make a mistake. He was arrested for the kidnapping and rape of Tatjana Georgette Anna von Mossig after she persuaded Egon and Wally to take her to Vienna. He was swiftly exonerated of those charges, but not of "immorality," which was alleged in connection with some pornographic drawings that some of the village's young residents had allegedly seen in his studio. He spent a total of 24 days in prison, but the effects of his incarceration on his career were long-lasting.

The 22-year-old Egon Schiele captivates us in what is likely his best-known self-portrait in a way that is both self-assured and vulnerable. This is one of the artist's final creations before taking a turn toward self-consciousness and contempt. The composition's various components—the raised and lowered shoulder, the head turned to the side and the eyes looking in the opposite direction, the slender but incisive stems of the lantern fruit plant with the powerful red of the blossoms—are arranged in a harmonious web of reciprocal relationships. There is no room for chance because each and every line has a consistent connection. The torso and hair are purposefully cut off at the top and bottom to match.

Egon Schiele reinvented the art of portraiture

It's amazing how Egon Schiele reinvented the portraiture genre while masterfully expressing the inner thoughts and feelings of his many subjects, including himself. From 1906 to 1918, he underwent many chronological phases in his growth as a portraitist. Self-Portrait with Chinese Lantern Plant is undoubtedly the most illustrious and famous self-portrait by Schiele. Schiele looks squarely at the audience in this piece, which was created while he was taking part in a number of exhibits. His expression conveys confidence in his artistic abilities. Schiele uses less distortion than in past self-portraits, but the painting rejects idealization by including scars and other contoured lines that are typical of the artist's drawing technique.

The artist cropped his chest and hair to fit into a horizontal format. Even though his eyes are focused in a different direction, the head bends to the right. This creates an intense sense of tension in the painting that permeates the sitter's surroundings. While the slanting shoulders slightly contradict the strictly constructed background, the twig with leaves and Chinese lanterns on the left of the image mimic the inclining head. The major forms' lines go perfectly with the excellent composition. Take the shoulder line on the right, which continues into the jawbone, as an example. Schiele's use of color is equally as sensitive as his sketching. The rich skin tones and the bright eye with the red pupil are striking traits.

Each line has a continuation or a corresponding counterpart, creating a symmetrical design where nothing is left to chance. The hair and body are mirror images of one another, trimmed at the image's horizontal boundaries, and these black areas are contrasted by the vivid red lantern fruits. Schiele's head is turned to the right, and his gaze is locked on the viewer in a further display of equilibrium. Sharp lines and a masterful use of color help to define the composition of the image. In doing so, the artist conveys a dual sense of fragility and confidence. The piece was intended as a complement to his contemporaneous portrait of Wally Neuzil, which explains the composition's unusual asymmetry.