Portrait of Paris von Gütersloh
Original title: Portrait of Paris von Gütersloh
kurzbeschreibung
Schiele made this lithograph in 1918, the year of his death, and it carries the portrait of the Austrian writer and painter Paris von Gütersloh. The head is drawn with a dense, almost nervous accumulation of line, and the print belongs among the artist's late works, where his expressive approach to portraiture is fully on show.
Description
We see a man with short, wavy hair, wearing a collared shirt. His gaze is serious and turned inward. Face and hair are worked over in precise, detailed strokes. A plain, neutral ground recedes and lets the face come forward. Everything stays monochrome, held in various shades of grey under even light, without harsh contrasts.
Context
The sheet dates from 1918, the last year of Schiele's life; he died of the Spanish flu. Paris von Gütersloh, a significant Austrian artist and author, moved in Schiele's circle within the Viennese art world. Around this time Schiele was testing printmaking more actively and taking on commissions for portraits. The lithograph belongs to a group of works he produced for the journal 'Die Aktion'.
Impact
The clear line and the sitter's grave expression give the sheet a collected, inward mood. Because colour is reduced to greys and the background stays neutral, the portrait acquires a timeless, almost graphic elegance. It shows how Schiele could make a personality tangible with very little.
Technique
The print was made as a lithograph, a planographic process in which the image is drawn on the stone with greasy chalk. The fine, detailed strokes point to careful work with the lithographic crayon. The paper measures 63.2 x 45 cm, larger than the image itself, which suggests a generously sized margin.
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Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art · Public Domain (CC0 1.0)