Sassy Schiele

sas·sy ¹  (ss)

adj. sas·si·er, sas·si·est

adj. 1. lacking restraint or modesty, rude and disrespectful.

        2. also a modern term for stylish, chick or sophisticated

A man who was infatuated with sex. The ‘artist’ who painted porn in its most explicit form at a time when the word ‘porn’ didn’t even exist. A complete narcissist, who detested his mother, angered his father and fantasized about his 12 year old sister, Gerti. The ‘painter’ who’s studio became a candy shop where little girls spent long afternoons sucking on sweets. Egon Schiele. The ‘pervert’ who was arrested and briefly imprisoned on charges of molesting and pornography. He painted mostly nudes – often sickly and deformed and engaging in savage sexual acts: males with females, females with females and girls with girls. I am not too surprised that his work scandalized the Viennese public of the time. Or am I?  

I cannot deny that Schiele’s nudes make me feel somewhat uncomfortable. But they also make me feel. They contain an indescribable form of sensation. They make me want to sob. Not because I feel disgusted, upset or even pity for his subjects, but because I think they touch on something deep that very few other nudes touch on. They celebrate the beauty of our savage sexual natures without apology. Schiele’s nudes are shameless. 

Compare Schiele’s nudes with photographs from a 21^st century fashion publication or even a fashion feature from a contemporary pop culture magazine and you’ll be surprised at what you’ll find: cadaverous, wasted-looking girls with dark, gothic make-up, slouched shoulders, aggressive attitudes - androgynous even. Schiele’s nudes resemble something very similar to these photographs. They address issues very familiar to our present day lives: depression, lesbianism, pornography, anorexia, rebellion. Egon Schiele seems to have been foretelling the coming of modern culture when modern culture was but a fetus.

    

Schiele’s ‘porn with a paintbrush’ makes pornography become beautiful, even essential. It puts porn right up there with Goya, Cezanne and Titian’s nudes. Or perhaps even above them. Compare a Titian nude to that of a Schiele. Which is more captivating, more grabbing? Titian’s nudes seem cold, dead, almost inhuman. They are female sexuality ‘well-behaved’. They are 'sweet' if you like. And for those of us who regard Egon Schiele's work as objectifatcations of the female body - it doesn't take a connoisseur to realize there is much more sexism to discuss in a Titian nude than there will ever be to consider in one of Schiele’s nudes and, needless to say,  much more to pity. Besides, Schiele painted himself in very similar, often much more explicit ways than he did his female subjects. Titian's female subject exist for the mere purpose of pleasing. They are objects of male satisfaction. We feel sorry for them. In Schiele’s nudes the pity seems to be reversed back to the viewer. Schiele’s nudes pity all those prudish cowards who fail to rejoice honestly in the beauty of our savage sexual natures. His nudes are different from the rest. Schiele’s nudes breathe. They have warm blood flowing through their veins. Where a Titian nude is poised, seductive, firm, healthy, balanced, adorned and rich, Schiele’s nudes are sick, savage and hardcore. They personify those things that we, as humans, actually experience in real life. His nudes are alive. They feel and make feel. Egon Schiele was a ‘silver-tongued poet’, not a pervert.