1915, Egon Schiele, Death and Maiden -- Belvedere Palace (Vienna)
From the museum label: Transience and death are existential themes that Egon Schiele explored time and again in his art. This painting can be interpreted as a symbolic allusion to his relationship with Wally Neuzil (1894-1917). In the year he painted this work, the artist separated from his long-standing partner and muse to marry the middle-class Edith Harms. Man and woman are captured from different perspectives that intersect in the central motif of a despairing em-brace. A fragile equilibrium implied by the figures' unstable poses threatens to break at any moment. The eyes of the man—a self-portrait of Schiele—stare blankly into the void.
1915, Egon Schiele, Death and Maiden -- Belvedere Palace (Vienna)
From the museum label: Transience and death are existential themes that Egon Schiele explored time and again in his art. This painting can be interpreted as a symbolic allusion to his relationship with Wally Neuzil (1894-1917). In the year he painted this work, the artist separated from his long-standing partner and muse to marry the middle-class Edith Harms. Man and woman are captured from different perspectives that intersect in the central motif of a despairing em-brace. A fragile equilibrium implied by the figures' unstable poses threatens to break at any moment. The eyes of the man—a self-portrait of Schiele—stare blankly into the void.