The Hands of Egon Schiele

The Hands of Egon Schiele

Salomon Resnik, Paris, France

Resnik S. The Hands of Egon Schiele. Int Forum Psychoanal 2000;9:113–123. Stockholm. ISSN0803–706X.

Through an exploration of Egon Schiele’s life and enigmatic “mannerisms”, which recall those ofautistic children and schizophrenic patients, the author explores the impact his outstanding anddisturbing paintings can have.The approach is biographical, revealing Schiele the artist as an already gifted though disturbedchild. Some material refers to Schiele’s way of expressing painful yet creative fantasies, in whichdifferent parts of his body (in particular his hands), projected into his paintings, form part of anintimate, creative, disturbed language.From childhood to his early death, Schiele used a coherent figurative language which was bothrealistic and oneiric; the author develops some ideas on art and psychoanalysis, particularly as tothe creative process within a complex and disturbed personality.Working as he did between the psychotic and non-psychotic elements of his personality (Bion),Schiele is an appropriate artist for our time. His drama, his feelings of disintegration and“dismemberment” are nourished by the creative, sane parts of his personality. The true psychoticartist is not entirely psychotic, for creation requires aesthetic taste and harmony.

Key words:Egon Schiele, psychoanalysis, art, painting, psychosis, manierism, creative process

Salmon Resnik, Ph.D., 20 rue Bonaparte, 75006 Paris, France

ArgumentThrough an exploration of Egon Schiele’s life,aesthetic expression and enigmatic “mannerisms”,which recall those of autistic children and schizo-phrenic patients, I shall explore the aestheticimpact on me of his outstanding and disturbingcreative self. Why does Schiele impress meparticularly? This has to do with my sensitivityas a person in touch for many years now both withmental pain and with the creative process.

My approach will not only be biographical,revealing Schiele the artist as an already giftedthough disturbed child. I will deal with whatHerbert Read expressed in his paper on psycho-analysis and aesthetic value as an approach to theaesthetic and sensori-perceptual experience of theunconscious. I refer to Schiele’s way of expressingpainful yet creative fantasies, in which differentparts of his body (in particular his hands),projected into his paintings, form part of anintimate, creative, disturbed language.

To my mind, creating delusions and expressingthem in a pictorial way is not sufficient to makesomeone a great artist. This requires a creativemind and extreme sensitivity towards one’s feel-

ings in spite of psychotic phenomena. There is atendency, with which I do not agree, to treatpsychotic productions as art in themselves. Thecreative process, in my opinion, belongs to a saneand non-psychotic part of the personality, eventhough the split between the two is quite relative.We should consider the productive unconscious ina much more subtle way, in which shades andshadows, in spite of splitting, play a major role inwhat could be called “mental painting”. The truepsychotic artist is not entirely psychotic, forcreation requires aesthetic taste and harmony.

IntroductionIf the objects which surround us could speak, orotherwise communicate through their sense or-gans, we would be able to establish a sort ofmagical dialogue with a living world. This is whathappens in psychosis, when fragments of halluci-nated objects of the inner world or the contents ofthe body come to inhabit our surrounding land-scape, including the natural human landscape. I amusing as a living metaphor that of the body, or the

2000 Taylor & Francis. ISSN 0803-706X

Int Forum Psychoanal 9:(113±123), 2000

“body image”, as an iconographic scenery. ForSchilder(1), theimageof thehumanbodymeansapicture of what our minds are able to drawconcerning our ownbody– in thecase of a painterit wil l alsobewhathecanexpressin his figurativepaintings,throughthe different figuresor modelshe inserts.In the caseof an abstractpainter, thenature,structureandtextureof a paintingcanalsobe understood as a projectionof his own body’sintimate or unconscious feelings, but also as aprojection of the “surface” and content of hisimaginativemind. Freud,in 1923wrote that “Theego is first and foremosta bodily ego; it is notmerelya surfaceentity, but is itself theprojectionof a surface” (2). He added,in a footnote dated1927, “the ego is ultimately derivedfrom bodilysensations,chiefly from thosespringingfrom thesurfaceof the body. It may thusbe regardedasamental projection of the surface of the body,besides … representing the superficies of thementalapparatus”.

Egon Schieleseemsto me to be an artist whocouldexpresstactile, thermal,andpainful impres-sions as though crying out in a pictographicmanner.An artist like Schiele is able to paintdistorted body images as part of his creativeprocessin the sameway asthe poetor writer hasto transform– or to deform– animagein ordertogive expressionto his metaphoric or metonymicthinking. We couldsaythatartistsin generalhavea very deep,almost“visceral” way of expressingthemselves. Here is an illustration from one ofEgon Schiele’s paintings of his capacity to“eviscerate” his feelings. Besides the intimaterelationship with the body massand its move-ments,what is remarkablein Schiele’swork is theliving manifestation of body language;it is asthoughhe wereable to witnessandto experiencethe very lines that movement of his visceralthinking takes(Fig. 1).

Schiele’s pictorial language is made up offeelings and sensationsthat hands,fingers, legs,face, eyesand other partsof his personalbodilymask– illustratedthroughhis models– areabletoexpress in a deeply touching and sometimesupsetting way. Poets such as Isidore Ducasse

(Comte de Lautreamont) and Gerard de Nervalwere also able to achievethat “heroic”1 kind ofaestheticimpactthroughtheir poetry(3).

In his studiesof iconography,Erwin Panofsky(4) speaks of the inner, enigmatic meaning ofrepresentational or figurativeartandits connectionwith cultural symbols.Are we to assumethat apainter like Schielecan tell us through pictorialcodesand allusions what was happeningin thecultural background of his time? Perhapsalso toanticipate terrible eventsfrom our own time suchas the concentrationcampsand the Holocaust?This is indeed the caseof this artist (Fig. 2).

Profile of the Artist’s Life and FamilyBackgroundWhenEgonSchielebeganhis work asanartist,asa boy of just 8, he was able to conceiveof andrepresenttrainsandrailway enginesin a pictorialmanner;thiswasalreadyhiswayof introducinghisimaginary world into the familiar objectsof hissurroundings. His father, Adolf Schiele, wasstationmasterin the small town of Tulln, about40mileswestof Vienna.EgonSchielewasborninTulln in 1890;hediedin Viennain 1918,whenhewasjust 28 yearsold. During his shortlife, he leftsome three hundred oil paintings and severalthousandwatercolours, sketches and drawings.According to Alessandra Comini (5), little EgonSchiele was so identified with his father, in hisdaily “iron” landscape,that perhapshe dreamtofbecomingan engine driver or a brakemanor aminor official in the railway office of somelittle

Fig. 1. Reclining Womanwith Blonde Hair, 1914. Pencil, water-colour andgouacheon paper.The BaltimoreMuseumof Art.

1 In a lecture given in Venice on January31st, 1999, RiccardoSteinerspokeof the creativeprocessin Freudasa youngman,aswell asin otherwriters,poetsandpainters.He usedthewords“theheroicself” to expressthenormalandabnormalaspectsof theegoideal with a passionateaim.

114 SResnik Int Forum Psychoanal 9, 2000

Austrian town. For two generations before hisbirth, railways had provided occupationfor theSchielefamily. It was a source of pride that thepaternalgrandfather,Ludwig Schiele,haddirectedthe constructionandbeenthe first generalinspec-tor of the impressively named Imperial RoyalPrivilegedWestRailwayof Bohemia(in whatusedto be Czechoslovakia). Egon was the sixth child,andthe only sonto survivein his “famil y camp”.Theboy’s physicalheritagewasunpromising. Hisfather had contracted syphilis just before hismarriage,andhe infectedhis youngwife. He was

a taciturn man,but capableof fierce outburstsoftemper. Hediedinsaneat theageof 54,whenEgonwas14 yearsold.

As we canseein thephoto, Egon’sfatherwasahandsome man. His mother, Marie Soukup,ori-ginally from whatwasthenBohemia,wasastrong-wil led romanticperson.ShemarriedAdolf againsther family’ s wishesat theageof sixteen(Fig. 3).

From early childhood, Egon was quite anintrospective,self-sufficientandpassionateperson.He was good-looking, with dark eyes that ex-presseda sad, inquiring and romantic look. In a

Fig. 2. Cile ConcentrationCamp Painting. Transfiguration(The Blind II) Oil on canvas,LeopoldMuseum,Vienna.

Int Forum Psychoanal 9, 2000 TheHandsof EgonSchiele 115

photographtaken of him asaboyof 15,weseehimalreadyholding a palettewith the self-assuredyetsensitive expressionof the inspired artist. Thisphotomadeaprofoundaestheticimpact onmyownadolescent imaginativeoutlook on life (Fig. 4).

Thebiographicalprofile of EgonSchieleshowsa life rich yet full of suffering for an authenticperson,for someonewhowasagenuineartistfromearly life on. “The differencebetweena trueartistand a dilettanteconsistsin the fact that the artistalways faces up to human pain, whereas thedilettanteonly seekspleasure”,saysOdilonRedon,the great oneiric painter in his autobiography Asoi-meme(6).

Schieleattendedelementary schoolin Tulln, andthenmovedto the“Realgymnasium” in Krems. Hewasnot a particularlyhappyschoolboy, sohewastransferredto anotherGymnasium.His childhoodwasovershadowedby theillnessof his father,whodied on New Year’s Day 1905.Betweendifferentsensations,betweenpleasureand pain, betweenfantasyandthe routineof life, the humanexpres-

sion in Schieleacquiresthe characterof a sort ofinspiredreverie thatsometimesbecomesa terriblenightmare.One can find in Schiele’sexpressionuncommondisquieting aesthetic sensationsandemotionsthat touch usvery deeply.

EgonSchieleexpressedhis bodily maskandhisnature through his pictographicdreamsand hisrelationship with imaginary visitors– from therealrailway inspectorsandfriendsof his father to hisown fantasy figures. He felt complicity withMelanie, his eldest sister, but was particularlyattachedto his younger sister,Gertrude,who oftenmodelled for him. When I speak of Schiele’snature, I think of the Renaissance thinkers andartists,andin particularMarsilio Ficino,anItalianhumanist inspired by neo-Platonism and by thealchemist tradition, who once said that Natureproducesthe aesthetic form from “inside”. (Thisview was a criticism of Leonardo da Vinci’sTreatiseon Painting.) Da Vinci usedto claim thatthe real painter was one who “thinks with hishands”.As for me, I believe that in the caseof

Fig. 4. EgonSchieleat age15.Fig. 3. EgonSchiele(left) with his parentsandsistersMelanieandElvira, c. 1892


Schiele,bothpointsof view hold true.His life andwork show a condensation of his deeply artistic“nature” and his delicately expressive“talkinghands”aswe seein thephotograph.

Schiele’senigmaticand realistic world showshow his intimacy and reverie gave body to hispainful andfantastichistory, translating it into anintricateandcreativevisual reality. As happensinthe most realistic dreams, according to Freud,Schiele undergoesdeep and complex metamor-phoses.His oneiriclanguagesometimesappearsasa raw realism that acquires a personalistic touchtypical of the greatRenaissance manieristic pain-terssuchasPontorno,Rossoetc.

Schiele makes us feel that it is difficult todistinguishbetweentheoneiric,poeticandrealisticworlds. Macedonio Fernandez,an Argentinianwriter who inspired Jorge Luis Borges, wrote:“How do we know whenwe areinspired in a stateof reverie,how canwe know whetherthebird thatflew in throughtheskylightcame in whenmy eyeswere open or closed?” (7). It seemsto me thatSchieleis inviting us to travel inside our dreamswith our eyes that open on to an exciting andsometimesupsettingWonderland.

In everydayexperience– whenwelook atatree,at a bird in flight, at a child playing, or at asculpture that we meet every day in the earlymorning on the way to the office or walking toschool– arewereallyawakeandnolongerasleep?This intermediate state between dreams andwakefulnesshas a certain aestheticvalue. Thisaestheticexperiencewakesusupfrom theordinaryroutineof our life. Sometimesanunexpectedvistafrom a window can strike us – as in my room inParisor Venice,where I live, or just a window intheLouvreon a beautifulsunnyday,thathelpsusdiscoveran unexpectedaestheticperspectivethatseemsto bepart of themuseumitself.

A Window on to a Flying HandFor yearsI wantedto visit – or evenjust to seeapictureof – Schiele’srailway stationandto try toimagine from which window little Egon couldconceiveof the world and of his first paintings(Figs.5, 6).

I canimaginethiscuriouslittle boy,spectatorofphantomtrains,being both movedand possessedby his fantasticcontemplations, weavingpictorial

fantasiesand thoughts,tracing his future prodi-giousadventures in a world still to come,in anasyet unknownfuture. But this complexandfatefulfuture waspartially tracedfrom birth – we knowthathis family historywastragic.If we look at thephotographof therailway station,we canimagineEgon asa very sadlittle boy, raising his handtowave goodbye to disappearing ghostly trains. I

Fig. 5. Windows.

Fig. 6. Railway station.


would think of thisashisopen“windowing” of hismind – in the Renaissance Alberti’s use of theconcept– servingas a frame betweeninner andouter reality andallowing him to conceiveof hisfirst drawings, which were indeed about trains.Only someof thesewerecolouredby his alreadyfertile imagination. His first sketchesof locomo-tives show them spewing off clouds of smoke,telling us of nostalgic shapesand shadesofmeaning… If we look carefully at thosesketches– madewhenhe wasonly 10 – we candiscover,betweenfantasyandreality, thecloudyshapeof ahand… (Fig. 7). In the first drawing, in asurrealistic fantasy I could connect his hand,waving a greeting,with one that is flying away,mergingwith thecloudof smoke pouringfrom thelocomotive and sayinggoodbyeto him. We findthis doublingof his personalityin severalof EgonSchiele’s paintings, in which he paints himselfsimultaneouslyin two positions. In the drawingcalled Through Europe by Night (Fig. 8), aromantic picture in ink and water-colour, themeaning of the cloud changes: a spreadingexpressionof his dark feelings(the smokeslidessadly downwards,as though trying to find somesupport from the fertile earth on which thelocomotive is devouring distances).The doubleappearsagainhere,becausethetrainhastwo lit-up“heads”,one taking him “ahead”, into his future,theotherbringinghim backinto hisdarkandheavypast.

Leon Battista Alberti’s On Painting (DellaPittura) (8) is the first modern treatise on thetheory of painting. It appearedin 1435–36,at atime of passagebetween theMiddle Agesandthemodernera of humanisticFlorentinethinking. In

Della Pittura, which preparedthe way for a newoutlook on art that was very closely interwovenwith humanistic ideas, Alberti speaks of theconceptof “open windows”. An openwindow inthis senseis not simply a quadrangleof rightangles,anaperture,a framethroughwhich we canseeandcontemplatefrom a new perspective,butalso the eye itself asa kind of “mobile window”.On the one hand, he developsthe conceptof awindow becoming equatedwith the frame of apicturewhile on theotherhesees theeyeitself – abodily window– asthebaseof apyramid,thebasisfor his pyramidalvisual outlook. The sidesof thepyramid are the rays he calls “extrinsic”; thecuspid(what Bion would havecalledthe vertex2)is thepoint of thepyramid, locatedwithin theeye.Eachanglehasthe meaning of a new perspectiveor outlook; indeed Alberti, Brunelleschiand thepainterPaolo Ucello wereto becomethepioneersof a fertile development of the concept of“perspective”in art andarchitecture.

As far asart andpsychoanalysisareconcerned,to bein touchwith theinnerworld of acreativeyetdisturbedpersonrequiresnot only respectbut alsoan aesthetic capacity. PerhapsBion is right whenhesays,“the analyst’spositionis akin to thatof thepainter who by his art adds to his public’sexperience” (10).

The Germanphilosopher,EugenFink, a pupiland collaborator of Husserl (11) wrote of the“principle of windowing” (Fensterhaftigkeit) indreamsand daily life: to get into our inner or“outer” dreamswe needto opena specialwindowthatenablesusto discover unexpectedworldsandlandscapes, both internal and external.The term“window” hasto dowith “wind”, air movingfast–of EgonSchiele’sinfantileartistic imagination(thebillowing cloudsof smoke).

Schiele’s“ manierisme”If we think of Schiele’s little flying hands,travelling in spaceand time, this brings to mindthe importanceof the expressiveposition of thehandsin the origins of what, in Giorgio Vasari’stime, wascalledthe “art of the maniera”, the firstdescription of what was later to develop into thestyle of ‘manieristic’ painting. The term has themeaningof style– the‘manner’of painting.Vasarigave the example of Giotto as an ‘ancient’

Fig. 7. Locomotive.

2 In Attentionand Interpretation, Bion (9) pointsout that “verticesmay have as their approximaterealizationsvarious recognizeddisciplinessuchas(…) paintingandotherarts”.


expressionof art (manieravecchia), asopposedtothat of Leonardoda Vinci (manieramoderna). Ifwe go back to the meaning of hands in earlymanierism, I find it fascinating to look at theTiziano painting of Man with Gloves, in theLouvre; here, we can see a parallel emotionalrelationshipbetweenthelook on his faceandwhathis handsexpress.

In Vasari’s time, it became very confusingwhen, on the one hand, people would speakof‘new’ artists who painted in the manner ofMichelangelo, Raphael or Tiziano, and on theother,of the so-called‘manieristic’ artistssuchasPontormo,Rosso,Bronzino and Beccafumi whopainted in a very personal and original style, insomeways anti-academic, thus becoming ‘inde-pendent’of their teachers. The word ‘manierism’containsthe idea of ‘manual’ – the way we dothingswith our hands.

Schieleis not merely a figurative expressionistpainterbut a post-modern‘manierist’ in his ownright. As a child artist,he alreadyhadhis original‘manner’ of painting– of putting his ‘hands’ intonaturein order to feel the wind… Very often wethink of theHellenisticconceptof art asa mimesisof nature.Verdeniusspeaksof Plato’sconceptofimitationin artassomethingirrationalandintuitivein which theartist,possessedby hismuse,imitatesthespirit of theobjectratherthantheobjectitself.A“creativeimitation” of thespirit,oressenceofthings,will beanoriginalwayof perceivingandexpressingaestheticexperience(12).

To speak of Schiele’smanierismis a way ofdefining an aspect of his life as an artist that Iwould like to developin this paper.

He was a contemporaryof Arnold SchoenbergandSigmundFreud,andshowedthesameconcernfor the unknown or irrational aspectsof the

“rhythm” of the deep inner self in the socialclimateof theViennesecommunityof the time.

Themeaning of his life, of hiswayof expressingfeelingsthroughhisart– his‘manner’– introducedtheideaof anambiguousspacein which innerandouter landscapes meetand sometimesmerge and“move” together. To get to know the artist’sintimate,innerself is alwaysasortof transgressionthatrequirescautionandgood‘manners’,justasinany ethicalsetting, like, for example,the intimateatmosphere of psycho-analysis itself.

Vasariusedto speakof the early manierists aspeople who would use “good manners”, dellebuonemaniere, perhapsin a mockingor otherwisecritical way.

Forme,EgonSchieleis anexpressionistpaintercorrespondinghistorically to themovementof thatname; but at the sametime he is a “manierist” inthe way in which he conveyshis inner gestuality,beyond all formal or unconventional judgementcomingfrom hiscontemporaries.Like in Tiziano’sMan with Gloves, Schiele dealswith the intimatecontent of the self mademanifest through form,matter and gestures.Manierism has also a phe-nomenologicalmeaning in the field of psychiatry,as explained by Ludwig Binswanger, who fol-lowedHusserl’straditionaswell asFreud’sviews.For Binswanger, manierism differs from stereo-types; it is not a question of those repetitiveapparently mechanical movementsthat we seeinchronic schizophrenics. It is a way of expressingaparticular code or secret language.People likemyself who work with autisticchildren andotherpsychotics find it useful to think in terms of amanieristic “bizarre” idiom thatrequiresa respect-ful decoding.An enigmatic manieristic languageisobviousin mostof Schiele’spaintingsandin someof his photographs. It indicatesquite clearly his

Fig. 8. ThroughEuropeby night.


artistic, esotericandgestual codes– which some-timesbring to mind that of catatonicpatients.

The corpusof EgonSchiele’swork is a corpusdolente,asuffering,carnalandironical one;thatisto say,his irony – asin the photographby AntonJosefTreka – is pathetic and painful. Pathosisalways located somewherebetweenthe distres-sing,thetragicandthecomic.Like all greatartists,Schielehasa greatsenseof playfulnessthat is alsopainful, and which takes the form of a patheticgame.

In my opinion,hisplasticcodespeaksfrequentlyof achild thatis rich inside,yetheis ontheboarderof deathasthoughheweretrying to be“re-born” orto induce his own birth into an open world. Tocomeinto the open– throughthe window of his

“I”/eye – is alreadyexpressedin the painting ofevisceration, aswe haveseenabove.

In contrast to the nightmarish and monstrousaspectsof theself,Schielewasalsoableto producea resplendent “solar” painting of his wife Edith’sbillowing skirt – which opens as a magic andradiant parasol. From the dark opacity of hismourning for his father, a new chromatic matteris born, dressedin multiple colours like a New-tonianprismalchemically translatedinto the rain-bow-coloureddresson his model’s body – in thiscasethat of his own wife (Fig. 9).

When,in 1907,SchielebecameacquaintedwithGustav Klimt, he was a 17-year-old art studentwith an alreadyrich backgroundas an artist thatimpressedKlimt. Four works by Schiele wereincludedin theInternational Art Showin Viennain1909, under the presidencyof Klimt; all fourshowedhow influenced he was by Klimt’s style.But Schiele moved away from the decorativeexpressionistic styleto his own special manieristicway of being.In 1910,the architect Otto Wagnerwas quite impressedby his paintingsand intro-ducedhim to well-knownViennesepersonalities.

In 1911,the first monographon Schiele’s workwaspublished;theauthorwasthepainterandpoetAlbert Paris von Gutersloh. Arthur RoessleranalyzedSchiele’s work in themonthlyart period-ical BildendeKunz. In April–May, Schielehadhisfirst one-manexhibition at the famous GalerieMoethkein Vienna.

Besideshis sisterGertrude,Wally Neuzil, whowasto becomehis girlfriend, wasoneof Schiele’sfavouritemodelsuntil hemarriedEdith.

In 1913, the Leagueof Austrian Artists, withKlimt as president, conferred membership onSchiele. In 1914, he was mobilized. During thewar, he discoveredthe potential of photographyandproduceda seriesof peculiarportraitswith thephotographer Anton Josef Treka. Despite thelimitations imposedby the war, Schielepursuedhis artistic careeruntil his tragic death in 1918.

On the whole, Schiele’s work shows theeloquentforce of his strugglewith life anddeathasheexpressedit in severalof his paintings,suchas The Fighter (Fig. 10). He was fighting for hislife.

In Schiele’smoving paintingsthereis alwaysaplay of forcesbetweenthelife anddeathinstincts.Arthur RoesslersuggeststhatbehindSchiele’sshyand“savage”maskthereis a rich andantinomical

Fig. 9.


innerspace.“Egonwith hisgreatandpiercingdarkeyes,” Roessler says, “often goes beyond hisinterlocutor”, as if he were trying to come outfrom his inner world through his particularhypersensitivity (13). We find in him a tragictranscendentalpoet who discovers unexpectedeventsin everydaylife. To discovernew realitiesis also an anticipation of a surrealistoutlook onlife.

Schiele reminds me of the romantic FrenchpoetssuchasBaudelaire, Verlaine,Rimbaudand,asI havesaid,GeraddeNerval.His expressionoffeelings is disquieting and deeply disturbing,manifestationsof his intense dialectical life –betweenthe sinisterandthewonderful.

What Schiele expressedin his paintingsand inhiswayof life hadto dowith thedimensionof lifethat Freuddescribed asdasUnheimliche (14), thenon-familiar,unknownpart of our existence. Thisgoesbeyonddaily androutinereality andtoucheson the magicor poeticsideof things.

In his poetic play, morbid and creativeat thesame time, Schiele, like Lautreamont, createdunexpectedpoeticmetaphors.Known asa painter,he alsowrote poems,called Theeternal child. Inhis poemsSchielegivesa pictureof himself asasilent,almostinvisible figure,who listensandseeseverything.He frequentlycontemplatesand talksto hisownmirror image. Like Alice in Through theLooking-glass, hetoowasattemptingto travel intothebeyondby meansof his insatiablecreativity…

In his poemshe speaksabout“living corpses”,as he doesin his paintings– this is what I meanwhen I say that he seemedto anticipate theconcentrationcampsand the Holocaust. AlreadyAristotle speaksof somethingthat Bion waslaterto call a “memory of the future” that anticipatorydreamsopenup for us.

“Those who believethat painting is somethingin itself aremistaken”,saidSchieleto Roessler.

Painting is an ability. I am thinking of the warmestcoloursnext to eachother, colourswhich blend,meltaway,break,appearin relief. A bumpily laid-onsiennawith greenandgreyandbesideit ablue-coldstar,white,white-blue… The painter can also look. To see,however,is somethingmore(13).

Schieleis a desperatelabyrinthicartist,a devourerof shadows,a recreator of living humanghostsanda transformerof landscapes andmysteriousreali-

ties.To someextent,heanticipatednewrealitiesinmodernart.

My emphasisin this paperis on therelationshipbetween Schiele’s early childhood, his creativecuriosity, his “windowing” years,his flying handsandhis intenseadult life andpaintingstyle.

The Final YearsI imagine little Egon Schiele’s hand trying tostretch out towardssomeimaginarypaternalhand– perhapsthe handof God, as in Michelangelo’sSixtine Chapelpaintings.This attemptto find thewelcoming handof an idealizedfather,however,wasdeludingandunhappy.He wassearchingforan ideal Self that he neededto invent in order tohavea modelon which he could build andacceptpaternity in his own life. With the image of his

Fig. 10. TheFighter,1913.


precariousfather in mind, we can imagine thatSchiele neededto dream of another world: anidealisedfatherfigure.

Theartist’sintimate handtriesto recreatea newand better image within his belief system.Un-fortunately,theshadowof intrudingdeath,throughthe epidemicof Spanishinfluenza, returnedasanold adversary thatwasto provetoo strongfor him.In opposition to inexorabledeath in his familybiography and his difficult mourning process,aneroticized aspectof life appearsin his paintingsasa way of beingexcitingly alive in spiteof his darkdestiny.

To play with one’s own destiny is a way ofexercising freedom and giving meaning to life.WhenI speakof destinyandthemeaningof life, Ithink of a force working against fate in EgonSchiele,a struggle againsthis fatalistic destiny.This is also the struggle between procreation/recreationand darknessor death.We can feel intheartistEgonSchieleamysticalyet tragiccombatbetween good and evil. God and the devil –perhapsSchielewas trying to bring both forcestogetherin order to createa truemarriagebetweenlife anddeathinstincts.Destiny,however,wastoprovestrongerthanhis desireto live andto makereparation.On the horizon of his short future, the“devil”, that was the influenza epidemic, waswaiting for him. This “devil” that temptedhimwasdressedin auniform– perhapsof apersecutingrailway official – andwith a devouringmask.

EgonSchielemovedon5thJuly1918to hisnewstudio on Wattmanngasse 6, Vienna. His wifeEdith, who was expecting a child, died from theSpanishinfluenza. The radiant light of Edith’sluminousskirt hadbecomeopaqueandwasfinallyextinguished. Threedayslater EgonSchiele’slifewas also extinguished– and so little grown-upEgon returnedto his darkness,to his primordialcave,to the samemotherly abyssthat had givenhim birth.

Between day and night, light and shadow,thework of theartistEgonSchieleliveson.Heis bornagainthrougheachof his pictorial “illum inations”(to paraphraseRimbaud), travelling through thenight like aghostlytrain.Schiele’sitineraryshowsus a tormentedartist at an ontological level ofexistence,partof theadventureof beingalive untilthevery last moment.

Death as well as life is part of a certainwandering… a way of travelling through life

without foreseeingany particularend.In his styleof existence,Schiele showed a consistentandintimate “manner” (manierisme) of being andceasingto be.

Going through the life and work of such acomplexandgifted artist asEgonSchiele, I havetried to allow myself alsoto “wander”, into roadsandcornersof autopianworld, from whichSchielewasable to return from time to time andto paintanotherpicture.…

ConclusionI havetried in thispaper,throughanexplorationofEgon Schiele’slife and enigmatic“mannerisms”which recall thoseof autisticchildrenandschizo-phrenicpatients,to establisha dialogueabouttheimpact his outstandingand disturbing paintingscanhaveon us.

I have chosen a biographical approach oritinerary,which showsSchieleasanalreadygiftedthoughdisturbedchild. Someof thematerial I userefers to paintingsfrom his early childhood; thisenables me to develop my research into themeaning of his aestheticand personalway ofexpressingpainful yet creativefantasies,in whichdifferentpartsof hisbody(in particularhishands),projected into his paintings, form part of anintimate, creative, disturbedand disturbing lan-guage.

Wilhelm Dilthey used to say that the artistrevealsthroughhis work more of his inner realitythan he intends to. He spoke of sensationsandaestheticexperience with which the motivatedexhibitionvisitor maybein touch.Thissuggeststome a “dia-logical” level of feelingsand forms inwhich creative communication occurs from un-consciousto unconscious– that is to say sponta-neously,throughanaestheticimpactbetweentwohumanbeingsor shadows.…

Working ashe did in the interfacebetweenthepsychotic and non-psychotic elements of hispersonality (seeBion, 15), Schiele is for me theappropriateartistfor ourtime,showingusashedidwith greatstrengthinvaluableand original “plas-tic” elements.His drama,his feelingsof disinte-grationand“dismemberment”arenourished by thecreative,sanepartsof hispersonality.I believethatthe great psychotic artist is a personwho is not


entirely psychotic, for creationrequiresaesthetictasteandharmony.

References1. SchilderP. The imageandappearanceof thehumanbody.New

York: InternationalUniversities Press,1950.2. FreudS. The Ego and the Id. (1923). London, HogarthPress,

1953;SE19:26.3. Resnik S. Dream and poetry. In: The theatre of the dream.

London& New York: TavistockPublications,1987.4. PanofskyE. Meaning in the visual arts. New York: Anchor

Books,1955.5. Comini A. Egon Schiele’s portraits. Berkely: University of

California Press,1974.6. RedonO. A soi-meme,Paris:Corti, 1961.

7. FernandezM. No todaesvigilia la de los ojosabiertos.BuenosAires: CentroEditor de la AmericaLatina,1967.

8. Alberti LA. On painting (Della Pittura). Trans.,notes,introd.,SpencerJR. London: New Haven& London University Press,1966.

9. Bion WR. Attention andinterpretation.London:KarnacBooks,1988.

10. Bion WR. Transformations:changefrom learning to growth.London:Heinemann,1965:37.

11. Fink E. Studienzur Phanomenologie,1930–39.In French:De laphenomenologie.Paris:Minuit, 1962.

12. VerdeniusWJ. Mimesis.Leiden,E.J.Brill, 1972.13. RoesslerA. In: NebchayCM. EgonSchieleSketchbook. New

York: Rizzoli, 1989.14. FreudS.The‘Uncanny’ (1919).London:HogarthPress1953;SE

17:217.15. Bion WR. Differentiation of the psychoticand non psychotic

personalities.Int J Psychoanal.Reprintedin: Secondthoughts.London:KarnacBooks,1984.

Summariesin German and SpanishResnikS. Die Handebei EgonSchiele

SchielesLebenerinnertin mancheman dasvon autistischenKindern and schizophrenenPatienten.Vor diesemHinter-grund untersucht dieser Beitrag seine beeindruckendenMalereien.Aus biografischerSicht erscheintSchieledabeibereits als Kind begabt,aber gestort. In manchenseinerMalereienaußernsich qualvolle, allerdingsauch schopfer-ischePhantasienuber seinenKorper und spezielluber seineHande;eineintime,kreative,aberzerstorteSprache.Siebliebin diesemSinnebis zu seinemfruhenTodefigurativ. DieseDarstellunggibt demAutor Anlaßzueinigengrundsa¨tzlichenGedankenuberdiePsychoanalysedeskreativenProzessesbeischwergesto¨rtenPersonlichkeiten.Er kommtzu demSchluß,daßder wirklich psychotischeKunstlernicht vollig psycho-tisch ist, weil das Schopferischeeine intakte Asthetik undHarmoniesinnerfordert.

ResnikS. “Las manosde EgonSchiele”

A traves de la exploracion de la vida de EgonSchiele,y elenigmatico “manierismo”, el cual rememoraaquellosninosautistas y pacientesesquizofreńicos, el autor explora elimpactoquesesobresalientesy perturbadaspinturaspuedentener.El acercamientoesbiografico, revelandoseSchieleel artistacomo un dotadoaunqueperturbadonino. Algunasinforma-cionesrefierenquela formadepintardeSchieledeexpresardolor aunque tambien creativas fantasıás, en las quediferentespartes de su cuerpo (en particular sus manos)proyectadasen sus cuadros forman parte de un intimo,creativo y perturbado lenguaje. Desde su infanciaa sutemprana muerte, Schiele utilizo un lenguaje coherentefigurativo, el cual fue realistay onırico; el autor desarrollaalgunas ideas sobre artery psicoana´lisis, particularmentecomounprocesocreaticodesdeuna complejay disturbadapersonalidad.Trabajandocomoel lo hizo entreelementospiscoticos y nopiscoticos de su personalidad(Bion) schieleesun artistadenuestrotiempo.Sudrama,sussentimientosdedesintegraciońy “desmenbramiento”sonalimentadospor laspartessanasycreativasd supersonalidad.El verdaderoartistapsicoticonoescompletamentepsicotico, parala creacion serequiereungustoestetico y armonico.


Documents

The Hands of Egon Schiele