shortireads

I wonder if she knows, that the blanket has thorns on its edges.

Egon Schiele snuck up on me. When I was touring those endless museums in Vienna, he only took up a small room of the first royal palace I visited. A humble spot, begging to go unnoticed. Needless to say, it was an invigorating discovery. I long debated whether to write about his art, whenever I find something like this, so breathtakingly new, so perfectly me, I try to keep it hidden, terrified of the consequences of overuse, of mindless sharing, of mainstream consumption, that pester art.

I went and saw Klimt, The Kiss and all that. The queues in front of his paintings were endless, people rushing up the stairs to catch a glimpse of his work, taking pictures without even reading the names of the artworks. Chances are no one will even look at these photos. They will exist in the meander of their galleries, stored in an album called Vienna Trip, collecting digital dust. Pictures taken solely with the intent of shouting: “I was there. I saw the painting everyone expects me to see”. It’s a shame too, because Klimt’s work is actually incredible. Yet I can’t shake this sense of banality that’s stuck to it, like a gum, like a sticky, strawberry-scented bubble of people’s opinions. All the eyes that have laid on it, all the breaths deposited on the surface, consuming the paint, veiling its essence. For art to be cliché, is for art to be dead.

So I’d like to make a personal request, for you to only glance at it once or twice, don’t google it, don’t look for it, don’t tell the world we care about Egon Schiele, I would truly sadden me to see his work fall to the power of everyone.

When I look at the hug, I can’t help but think the man is already dead. Upon reading its original German name on one of those little plaques, the ones they put up next to the frames with some basic, bland, biographical information on the artworks, I had to hide my laugh. However, a betraying giggle escaped my sealed lips, bothering the focused-looking man, engaged in a staring contest with a painting next to me. He could’ve been young or old, choose freely. You can imagine him attractive, a cute smirk painted on his look-at-me face. Maybe you see him wrinkled and unpleasant, gravity claiming his body and with each step dragging him closer to the floor.

“Do you think this painting is funny?”
“No, not really… I just thought that it was humorous that the original name has Die in it”.

But Die in German is a mere article, a simple the. Nothing as ominous as I had imagined. Nothing that would explain why the man reeks of death. Why his bones stick out here and there, his anatomy laid out as a revolting map of human flesh. His colours are washed up, yellowed by whatever illness is eating him. Like expired meat, the man’s outside layer has been stripped away, exposing his most hidden biology.

How could I not notice his deadly state, when she is so alive. My eyes look for her, in a desperate search for the slightest relief from his boney reality. Her plumpness, her transparent skin like glass, pure, unadulterated living. Her hair, a path, a trail out of whatever dangerous embrace this is. Egon calls it (Lovers II), liar. If it’s love, it’s a love I’d avoid at all cost, one doomed from the very start, one ridden with a tragic fate.

After finding the secret Egon Schiele’s room, I sat in front of this painting for a few minutes. The room was empty but for the man next to me. He too was probably worried that I might reveal the beauty of this art. I glanced at him hoping to reassure him that I was already sworn to secrecy. An air conditioner spat out breezy oxygen and whilst my palms were dry, my forehead was moist. I could feel little pearls of sweat forming on my scalp, desperately looking to escape on my exposed skin.

Truth be told, I’m worried for her. I want to scream, I want to tell her to let go of the cancerous being that desperately clings to her body. I want her to open her eyes, see for herself that she is cherishing only the shadow of someone, bound to drag her down in whatever depths of earth he’s taken residence.

Maybe, what I really want to ask is why she’s hugging him back, so tightly.