“Autumn Sun I”
This oil on canvas painting from 1912 is by the Austrian Expressionist artist, Egon Schiele, and is called “Autumn Sun I”.
Though mostly remembered for his often-risqué portraits, over one third of Schiele’s oil pieces were actually landscapes. Schiele found that nature walks provided solace from his personal life, seeing a connection between nature and human emotion. The outdoors provided a respite from his tumultuous home life and what he deemed as “lifeless schooling”.
In 1911, Schiele started a series of works that anthropomorphized trees, essentially creating tree ‘portraits.’ Between 1911 and 1912, this was the focus of his work. This is one of those pieces. If you look carefully, you’ll notice that the trees are too weak to stand alone and are being propped up. “One experiences an autumnal tree in summer most profoundly,” Schiele explained. “This melancholy I want to paint.”
“Autumn Sun I” is currently in a private collection.
For more on Egon Schiele, please visit his short biography here.
You can find more artists to learn about here.
