Self-Portrait with Physalis
Egon Schiele (1912)
In Self-Portrait with Physalis, Egon Schiele twists his gaunt body toward us, the face flayed by violet and blue accents and set against a scraped, chalky ground. The <strong>red-orange lantern pods</strong> flare beside his black, sharply linear jacket, a <strong>counterweight</strong> that charges the image with tension between vitality and decay <sup>[1]</sup><sup>[2]</sup>. Signed and dated <strong>1912</strong> at lower right, it crystallizes Schiele’s Expressionist self-scrutiny.
