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Dimensions: 48 by 35.2cm.
18 7/8 by 13 3/8 in.
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Provenance: PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE AMERICAN COLLECTION
Serge Sabarsky, New York
Acquired from the estate of the above by the present owner
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Exhibited: Des Moines Art Center; Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts and Chicago, Art Institute of Chicago, Egon Schiele and the Human Form: Drawings and Watercolors, 1971-72, no. 33, illustrated in the catalogue
Munich, Haus der Kunst, Egon Schiele, 1975, no. 194, illustrated in the catalogue
Tokyo, The Seibu Museum of Art, Egon Schiele: An Exhibition of Watercolors and Drawings, 1979, no. 40, illustrated in colour in the catalogue
London, Marlborough Fine Art Ltd., Egon Schiele: An Exhibition of Watercolours and Drawings, 1979, no. 29, illustrated in the catalogue
Vienna, Historisches Museum der Stadt Wien; Linz, Neue Galerie der Stadt Linz; Munich, Museum Villa Stuck and Hanover, Kestner-Gesellschaft, Egon Schiele: Aquarelle und Zeichnungen, 1981-82, no. 68, illustrated in the catalogue
New York, Serge Sabarsky Gallery, Schiele, 1986, no. 15
Roslyn, Nassau County Museum of Art, Gustav Klimt: 125 Drawings, 1986
Vienna, Bawag Foundation (and travelling in Austria, Germany, Italy, France, Czechoslovakia, Slovenia and Poland), Egon Schiele: 100 Zeichnungen und Aquarelle, 1988-97, no. 36, illustrated in the catalogue
Roslyn Harbor, Nassau County Museum of Art, Egon Schiele. A Centennial Retrospective, 1990
Martigny, Fondation Pierre Gianadda, Egon Schiele, 1995
Frankfurt, Jahrhunderthalle Hoechst, Hommage à Serge Sabarsky: Klimt, Kokoschka, Schiele. Aquarelle und Zeichnungen, 1997, no. 80
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Literature: Jane Kallir, Egon Schiele: The Complete Works, New York, 1998, p. 513, no. 1417, illustrated
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Notes: The intricacies of human anatomy fascinated Schiele throughout his career. As the title, Bewegung (Movement), indicates, in the present work he creates an arresting and powerful image of a body in motion, seen from behind. The model, presumably the artist himself, appears to be in the act of either dressing or undressing, as one sleeve slips off his left shoulder and the other gathers on his right. His torso is arched forward and his neck twisted to the side in what appears to be an uncomfortable position as the fabric shifts on his body. Regardless of the intent of the act, it is clear that the figure is in a complicated pose that he cannot hold for very long; the twisted shape of his body invests the composition with a dynamic enegy, while our anticipation of the man adjusting his body gives it a strong sense of movement.
By the time Schiele executed the present work in 1913, he had become accustomed to drawing himself in the nude, depicting the sinews and curves of his own body. It is known that he often drew these self-portraits with the assistance of several mirrors in his studio, enabling him to view his body from different angles. Although in Bewegung the figure is clothed in a shirt or jerkin, Schiele has rendered the fabric so that it appears as sensual and supple as his own skin. Using a viscous, ochre-coloured gouache, he painted the folds and creases of the fabric as it bunches around the contours of his long, lean torso. The artist often favoured the medium of gouache to heighten his works on paper, enhancing the dimensionality of the sheet and bringing to the viewer's attention the various textures in his images. In 1913-14 Schiele executed a number of works in which he explored unorthodox moves of the male body, representing figures in strange contortions, with sharply drawn, angular limbs filling the composition. Although concentrating primarily on the human form, the artist paid equal attention to the resulting movement in the fabric the figure is wearing, colouring it in brushtrokes going in all directions.
Schiele executed the present work about a year after serving a six-month prison sentence for charges of indecency. Although the episode profoundly upset him, Schiele continued to explore sexual themes in his art and concentrated on the beauty of the human body with steadfast devotion. Few artists of his generation gave such candid and captivating depictions of the physicality of their models - an accomplishment which attracted much scandal as well as much praise during Schiele's lifetime. Even fewer artists concentrated so explicity and so unapologetically on the nudity of the male body, and it is this focus which set Schiele far apart from his colleagues within the avant-garde.
Writing about Schiele's depictions of the male nude, Simon Wilson has observed: "Schiele's mature art presents us with an image of man, free-floating, seen from strange and unusual angles and in strange and unusual postures, that is quite new in the long history of the human image in Western art. He developed in other works a completely fresh view of man in art - an extraordinary achievement. But that is not all: Schiele's image of man is of an unprecedented and remarkable completeness. He depicts us as the sexual beings we are in a way no other great artist had ever done before, and at the same time gives full and equal value to the metaphysical and the psychological" (S. Wilson, Egon Schiele, Ithaca, 1980, p. 18).
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