Daily Appreciation — 3, April,2019
Egon Schiele
1890–1918
DÄMMERNDE STADT (DIE KLEINE STADT II) (CITY IN TWILIGHT (THE SMALL CITY II))
Signed Egon Schiele and dated 1913 (center left)
Oil and black crayon on canvas
35 5/8 by 35 1/2 in.
90.5 by 90.1 cm
Painted in 1913.
Dämmernde Stadt (Die kleine Stadt II) is one of the preeminent Schiele townscapes still in private hands. Conceived on an impressive scale and illustrating Schiele’s visionary approach to subject and form, these townscapes are now principally found in leading museum collections across the globe.
In adopting this compositional device Schiele liberated himself from the conventions of traditional representation and the result is a radical approach to perspective. The houses of the town crowd the pictorial plane, emphasizing the organic, cluttered nature of the medieval streets. Schiele eliminates pictorial depth, building the forms one on top of another, with the imposing swathe of river at the bottom of the canvas and the houses rising vertiginously above it. It has been widely observed that Schiele’s townscapes are not literal depictions of a given view, but rather the artist’s own, highly personalized interpretations of them. Like many of his best landscapes, the present work is reflective of the artist’s emotional and psychological response to Krumau, rather than an accurate topographical representation.
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