![]() He was disappointed but did not appear particularly heart-broken, at least no at first sight, but surely the separation must have pained him in the moments of solitude and contemplation, the moments which gave birth to paintings such as this one. Egon gazed at her with his dark eyes and said not a word. There, in the dreamy smoke of Egon’s cigarette, sitting at a little table in the Café Eichberger where he often came to play billiards, the two doomed lovers bid their farewells. Perhaps she wasn’t a suitable woman to be his wife, but she wasn’t without standards or heart either. It’s something that Wally couldn’t agree with. Upon meeting Wally for what was to be the last time, Egon handed her a letter in which he proposed they spend a holiday together every summer, without Edith. But first he needed to brake things off with Wally Neuzil, a lover and a muse who not only supported him during the infamous Neulengbach Affair but was also, ironically, an accomplice in introducing him to Edith. In June 1915 he married Edith Harms a shy and innocent girl next door. ![]() To get a better perspective at the symbolism behind this painting, we need to understand the things that happened in Schiele’s life that year. The figure of Death resembles Schiele, and we do all know he showed no hesitation when it came to painting and even taking a photo of himself, and the red-haired woman is then clearly Wally. It is impossible not to draw parallels between the figures in the painting and Schiele’s personal life at the time. ![]() The maiden will not die, she will be clinging to death for all eternity. We can sense their inevitable separation through their gestures and face expressions, and, at the same time, their embrace feels frozen in time, the figures feel stiff and motionless, as if the rigor mortis had already taken place and bound them in an everlasting embrace. She holds onto him as if he were love itself, and still, her hands are not resting on his back gently, they are separate and her crooked fingers are touching themselves. She is not the least bit afraid of his black shroud of infinity. The red-haired woman hugs him tightly with her long arms and lays her head on his chest. The background is an unidentifiable space, a desolate landscape painted in colours of mud and rust.ĭeath is a man not so dissimilar to Schiele’s other male figures or self-portraits, without the help of the title we couldn’t even guess that is represents death. They are lying on rumpled white sheets, their last abode before the hours of love vanish forever, which simultaneously add a touch of macabre sensuality and remind us of the burial shroud. They cling to each other in despair painfully aware of the finality and hopelessness of their love. ![]() It shows two figures in an embrace, apparently seen from above, not unusual at all for Schiele to use such a strange perspective. Painting “Death and the Maiden” is a very personal work and it connects and unites two themes that were a lifelong fascination to Egon Schiele death and eroticism. If it wasn’t for the Spanish influenza, she could have had their child and his prodigious mind could have produced many more drawings and paintings. Three days prior to that he witnessed the death of his pregnant wife Edith. Egon Schiele died on the 31st October 1918. ![]()
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