Self-Seer II (Death And Man)
1911
Egon Schiele stares death right in the face in this intense 1911 double portrait, wrapping his own reddish, wide-eyed visage around a pale, skeletal figure that looks like it just crawled out of a grave. It's a raw, jagged embrace between the artist and his own mortality, painted with thick, aggressive brushstrokes that make the whole scene feel like a fever dream. Schiele was only 21 when he created this haunting reflection on life's fragility, foreshadowing his own tragic death from the Spanish flu just a few years later at age 28.
Location: Leopold Museum, Vienna
Views: 9