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Introduction
Egon Schiele’s Levitation (1915) stands among his most enigmatic and electrifying works, encapsulating the artist’s mature Expressionist vision through a fusion of distorted anatomy, charged gesture, and symbolic resonance. Executed in oil and gouache on paper mounted on canvas, this painting presents two intertwined figures seemingly floating above a drastically abstracted ground. More than a mere display of technical virtuosity, Levitation embodies Schiele’s preoccupation with spiritual transcendence, earthly suffering, and the fragile boundary between life and death. Through bold contour lines, strategic color accents, and layered compositional planes, Schiele transforms an intimate scene into a cosmic allegory that reverberates with the anxiety and yearning of its wartime milieu.
Historical and Biographical Context
By 1915, Egon Schiele was an established yet controversial figure within the Viennese avant-garde. A protégé of Gustav Klimt and a central member of the Vienna Secession, Schiele had cultivated a visual vocabulary marked by angular lines, contorted nudes, and raw erotic frankness. The outbreak of World War I in 1914 cast a long shadow over European artists, and Schiele himself experienced both the threat of conscription and the emotional toll of witnessing a continent in turmoil. Levitation arises from this period of existential crisis, channeling the uncertainties of public conflict into a personal meditation on the body’s tension between mortal fragility and spiritual aspiration. Far from escaping into idealized mysticism, Schiele’s painting confronts the viewer with the stark reality of flesh—and the possibility of its transcendence.
Compositional Structure and Spatial Ambiguity
At first glance, Levitation defies conventional notions of anchorage and perspective. Two nude figures, one standing and one reclining, appear to hover above a fractured terrain of gouache-infused paper collage. The standing figure, bent at the knees and leaning forward, supports the reclining body, which is draped across his shoulders in a manner that suggests both emotional intimacy and sacrificial burden. Schiele disrupts stable spatial reference by flattening the ground into a mosaic of irregular, multicolored patches that echo the jagged shapes of mountain rock or broken glass. The viewer’s gaze is drawn into a swirling vortex of planes—each fragment of the background resonating with the figures’ dynamic lines. This compositional fluidity evokes both the instability of wartime Europe and the metaphysical unmooring of souls striving toward transcendence.
The Expressive Power of Line and Contour
Line in Levitation is not a passive descriptor but the very lifeblood of emotional intensity. Schiele employs his signature black contour to outline limbs with a thrilling mixture of precision and agitation. The standing figure’s spindly arms and hands are rendered in skeletal detail, the knuckles and tendons marked by surging curves that suggest both strength and vulnerability. In contrast, the reclining figure’s body is defined by softer, more sinuous strokes that convey a sense of looseness or even dissolution. These complementary line qualities—taut versus supple—underscore the psychological interplay between bearer and burden, consciousness and release. Schiele’s contours do more than delineate form; they animate the canvas with a palpable, almost electric tension.
Color, Light, and Emotional Resonance
Although dominated by earthy ochres, dusty greens, and pale fleshtones, Levitation incorporates striking accents of red and indigo that heighten its emotional charge. The standing figure’s coat—a warm, rust-colored garment—seems to fuse with his flesh, blurring the boundary between clothing and body. The reclining figure’s lips and cheeks bear touches of sanguine red, suggesting both vitality and the blood of sacrifice. Background fragments of cool blue and violet carve out spaces of spectral light, as though illuminating a realm beyond earthly confines. Schiele layers his oil and gouache to produce areas of matte chalkiness alongside glossier passages, creating shifting reflections that mimic the instability of human emotion. This interplay of color and surface imbues the painting with a haunting luminosity, neither purely somber nor overtly vibrant.
Symbolism and Thematic Depth
Levitation resonates with powerful symbolic overtones. The act of one figure supporting another in midair recalls Christian iconography of the Pietà, yet Schiele eschews devotional serenity in favor of raw psychological complexity. The bearer’s bowed posture and tense musculature convey the weight of worldly suffering, while the horizontal figure’s closed eyes and limp form evoke surrender or death. The fractured, collage-like ground suggests a world shattered by conflict, yet its vibrant hues hint at the possibility of regeneration. Through this layering of references—religious, personal, and political—Schiele crafts a universal allegory: human existence as a precarious suspension between pain and redemption.
Technique and Material Innovation
Schiele’s technical approach in Levitation highlights his experimental spirit. The painting combines oil with gouache on a surface of paper adhered to canvas, a choice that allowed for unusual textural effects. The paper fragments, cut or torn into irregular shapes, were arranged to create a dynamic ground that interacts with the painted figures. Gouache provided vivid, opaque color for background motifs, while oil enabled subtle modeling in the flesh areas. Scientific analysis reveals that Schiele employed minimal underdrawing, indicating his reliance on direct, intuitive painting. The paper collage, far from being a preliminary stage, remains integral to the final composition—its seams and edges contributing to the work’s fractured spatial logic.
Anatomy and the Grotesque
Schiele’s treatment of the human form in Levitation traverses the boundary between realistic observation and grotesque exaggeration. The standing figure’s elongated legs and arms recall classical notions of contrapposto, yet his joints are overstated, his knees and elbows jutting sharply like broken spines. The reclining figure’s torso seems almost skeletal, with ribs and pelvis outlined by emphatic strokes that suggest skin stretched taut. These distortions evoke both vulnerability and defiance, underscoring the body’s capacity to endure suffering while yearning to transcend it. Schiele’s embrace of the grotesque challenges viewers to confront the physical realities of mortality rather than escape into idealized beauty.
Emotional Intensity and Viewer Engagement
Levitation exerts a magnetic pull on the viewer’s emotions. The intertwined bodies, caught in a moment of extreme vulnerability, provoke empathy and introspection. The standing figure’s upward gaze suggests a search for meaning beyond the material plane, inviting the viewer to partake in that gaze. The open palm of the supporting hand, held before the reclining figure’s face, functions as a forward gesture, as though warning or blessing. This gesture draws the viewer into the painting’s narrative, fostering a sense of participation in the act of support and release. Schiele’s combination of arresting imagery and psychological candor ensures that Levitation remains an unforgettable encounter.
Relation to Schiele’s Broader Oeuvre
Within Schiele’s wartime output, Levitation occupies a singular place as a large-scale allegorical work. While many of his drawings and watercolors from 1914–1918 focus on single nudes or stark self-portraits, Levitation expands his scope to encompass multi-figure interaction and complex spatial composition. It anticipates subsequent explorations of human interconnectedness, such as The Embrace (1917), in which two figures fuse into a swirling vortex of passion and anxiety. Levitation thus serves as a keystone, linking Schiele’s early figurative innovations to his late-period engagement with spiritual and collective themes.
Reception and Legacy
Upon its creation, Levitation was known only within Schiele’s circle of avant-garde patrons, many of whom appreciated its daring formal experiment and emotional potency. After the artist’s death in 1918 from the Spanish flu pandemic, his reputation underwent a period of relative eclipse, overshadowed by the horrors of two world wars. In the postwar revival of interest in Expressionism, Levitation was rediscovered as a masterpiece of early 20th-century art, praised for its synthesis of psychological depth and formal audacity. Today, the painting is housed in a major museum collection and is frequently included in exhibitions tracing the intersection of war, spirituality, and modernist experiment.
Conservation and Technical Insights
Conservators have noted that Levitation’s paper-canvas support required specialized interventions to stabilize paper tears and flaking gouache. X-ray imaging revealed Schiele’s direct layering approach, with no extensive revisions beneath the visible surface. Pigment analysis confirmed a blend of traditional earth tones and synthetic pigments—particularly a vivid cerulean blue in the background—that reflect Schiele’s openness to new materials. Recent conservation efforts have focused on re-adhering lifted paper fragments and consolidating the gouache layers, ensuring that the painting’s textural dialogues remain legible for future audiences.
Conclusion
Egon Schiele’s Levitation (1915) stands as a pinnacle of Expressionist art, merging visceral depiction of the human body with a lofty meditation on suffering and transcendence. Through its sweeping composition, electrifying contours, and bold textural contrasts, the painting captures a moment suspended between earthly anguish and spiritual aspiration. In the fraught context of World War I, Schiele transforms the canvas into a battlefield of flesh and spirit, where the weight of one life becomes the burden and salvation of another. More than a historical artifact, Levitation endures as a powerful reminder of art’s capacity to grapple with the deepest tensions of human existence.