A Self-Portrait

At the end of middle school Mrs. Rose Pickle presented us with a charcoal gray pencil and our final assignment: A self-portrait. Every year they were hung outside the auditorium and I had always marveled at those who were able to resemble their actual appearance or apply the shading just right. We had to make a presentable effort, and in most cases play up the mediocre picture we had of ourselves grinning through gritted, in most cases braced, teeth. For weeks we labored over gridding the paper and the picture, so we could place each crease, each individual eyelash in just the right spots on our faces. The task was daunting. Who really likes to look at themselves in that much detail anyway? The final products were 70 wide-eyed, smiling faces covering the walls as a sort of remembrance of a class that was being reluctantly nudged into high school.

If Egon Schiele’s self portrait were to be found pinned outside the auditorium he would most likely be forced to have a talk with the guidance counselor. In no way does he hold back from an expression of twisted anger and an evil aura. In no way does he dress up his features. He is starved, jagged, dirty. The curvature of his back suggests old age, and his left arm is interrupted by protruding bones at the joints of the shoulder and elbow. This facing arm appears an antiqued, almost jaundiced yellow, hanging stiff from his hunched shoulder. He peers over his craggy shoulder with puckered red lips. His chest sags over two bulging growths at his ribcage, as if his stomach caves in between them.
Schiele ignores tedious grids, or where parts of his body are “supposed” to be placed. Although his elongated body stretches over the full length of the page, his crinkled face draws the most attention. Through narrowed eyes Schiele leads us into his life of suffering. He portrays a mesmerizing evilness with Rasputin-like eyes. His arm wraps around his head awkwardly, and his grimy hands seem to press his temple. Dark shadows creep under his eyes and in the creases of his sculpted face. An unabashed clump of armpit hair grows under his lifted arm.

It is as though Schiele has a dark past, which he recalls in his eyes. Bare and exposed, he leaves nothing to encourage the onlooker to smile. Hints of red and yellow are hidden by quick black strokes in all directions. Schiele’s view of himself reaches past layers of grade-school appearances into his shaded soul. It is just by looking that I feel I have overstepped my boundaries as an observer and become an intruder.