Liepke Reclining Woman

A study of Egon Schiele’s drawing, Reclining woman and Malcolm Liepke’s painting, fitting the gown presents women as respected figures, despite depicted as erotic and sexual the artworks of both artists have highlighted sexuality and cultural symbolism of cultural symbolism. Whilst Schiele’s drawings are graphic and provocative, frequently modeling nude women, the embrace of physical distortion highlights his genuine obsessiveness and adoration of women in contextual society. In contrast, Liepke’s paintings reflect women caught up in intimate moments highlighting themes of femininity, cultural symbolism and issues of ideologies from a postmodern perspective. It is the exploration of each respective artist’s intentions and processes that demonstrate
The model is posed nude lying down and avoiding eye contact from a revealing and unsettling higher angle, exposing the model as though attempting to force a psychological response from a subject that has embodied the cyclical sexual desires and views from society that has made her broken and lifeless. We as the audience are sympathetic with the artist as though we were conversing with the model. Taking advantage of the translucent qualities of watercolour, Schiele is able to further convey his admiration of women in mentally able to in a socially condemning society. The dominating shade of black as Schiele freely applies the direction of his brushes in different directions catches our attention, calling us to consider the contributing factors the social attitudes in objectifying women and adding to their mundane lifestyle. Consequently from the focal point of the shirt, vector lines lead us to the exposure of the model’s bottom highlighted with the slight coloration of pink against the neutral, warm beige of the gouache paper. Thus arousing a sense of sexual desire and attitudes frequently dominating in society towards conventional forms of beauty for women of which this sense of feeling is heightened with the symbolic representation of the grey stockings indicative of femininity and sexual connotations of prostitution. Only after engaging with the face in which Schiele uses diluted consistencies of neutral and paler colours do we notice the lifelessness and disregard of identity of women in the modernist context. Such methods suggest a sense of lifelessness and sickness as expressions Schiele aims to draw out to demonstrate the mundanity of women in his context and as a result feels obligated to love and respect