Details
The image
A standing figure with the arms pulled in and the shoulders twisted, drawn with a nervous line that thickens and thins within a single stroke. The body is cropped by the edge of the sheet, the background is bare and colour appears only in patches where the skin or cloth would be.
Where it comes from
Viennese drawing at the beginning of the twentieth century treated the body as a subject for honesty rather than for idealisation: awkward poses, visible joints, hands that grip something invisible. The approach was argued about in the same city and the same years in which psychoanalysis was being written and it reads today as one of the first attempts to draw people as they actually stand.
On the wall
It holds a room with a certain tension, so it suits a study, a hallway or a bedroom with simple furniture. Because the line is the subject and the ground is bare, it needs light and a wall that is not busy. In a group it should be given space, the figure needs air to keep its awkwardness.
In company
Hung beside another piece from the Egon Schiele collection, it reads as part of a series rather than a single picture.Avoid hanging it beside other figurative work, two bodies on one wall compete rather than converse.
