Egon Schiele: 'The Family'.

Egon Schiele: 'The Family', 1918 (Belvedere Gallery, Vienna).

Illustration 1: 'The Family'.

My lifelong Egon Schiele 'obsession' began with seeing a reproduction of 'The Family' (in an art-book that I'd bought in the 1990s). His use of line, particularly, evokes a hypersensitive awareness of touch. By describing the contours of a human body, each model becomes an exposed object: its presence makes an incision into pictorial space. Schiele's mastery of contour-line, however, also transmits enormous emotion and pathos.

Illustration 2: 'Self Portrait', 1914.

Having the privilege, much later, of viewing 'The Family' in The Belvedere Gallery, Vienna, I was struck by its compositional authority. I see it as Egon Schiele's great attempt to resolve the problem of alienation, and of human separateness, that is pervasive in his earlier work.

The family members are joined, like Russian-dolls, in a sequence of interlocking forms; but, positioned within a cradle of darkness, each face points in a different direction. The self-examining gaze of a father (and self-portrait) is, perhaps, a comment on masculine and parental uncertainty.

Illustration 3: 'The Family' (detail).

The emotional centre, however, is shifted elsewhere: towards the representation of a mother's face, with her expression of profound sadness and ambivalence.

Illustration 4: 'The Family' (detail).

This marks an unexpected transition. By focusing attention away from 'the self', Schiele appears to replace anxiety and isolation with the unifying principle of shared intimacy.