Seated Woman with Bent Knees

Egon Schiele was interested in the distinctive language of the human body, expressed both through fine and extreme mental and sexual transformations. In 1915, Schiele married Edith Harms. Edith and her sister Adele sat as models for the artist. The empty space around the seated model enhances the figure’s sitting position. Although this is a woman closely related to the artist, his beloved Edith, she is portrayed assuming a provocative, relaxed pose, wearing black stockings and a hitched-up petticoat. The overall visual impact of the image is completed by an expressive tonality and the visible strokes done with gouache. Schiele studied and staged the poses of his models to the extent that ultimately he achieved a deformed and even grotesque effect. The artist disrupted the deep-rooted contrast between beauty and ugliness, introducing the provocative concept of the novel combination of form and emotion, which – in later years – he shifted more towards a sense of mystery.