Egon Schiele is a modern artist in the category of Expressionism. He has many controversial paintings of figures and self portraits. The figures and the self portraits has one thing being in common and it is the fact that they are representing a feeling, emotion or an instinct rather than being models or anatomically true representatiın of bodies. They all serve to much deeper purpose and meaning of being in a certain state of mind. And in this paper I will look at his work called “Art Cannot be Modern, Art is Primordially Eternal” with chairs. He does the same thing with chairs as he has been doing with portraits and the subjects of the painting becomes more than a painting of a chair but the existence and the being of the chair. These figures whether they are people or objects, they are more than their basic purpose and it should be understood with that way of thinking. What is shown in the painting does more than only showing or being displayed, it is also telling. And these can be considered as two different things as Hegel thinks that something either can or can not be. But in fact I think this painting also proves that wrong by both showing and saying at the same time. And also it is far from aesthetics as they are just objects so it is the idea, the thought behind it that gives the feeling to the viewer. And as such in this painting, there are several elements to this painting. One the chairs being there, not fort he purpose of us sitting, they are not even placed towards us. So the idea is that they are there for themselves, just as beings. As every object has it’s being aside from its purpose. I think this is what is going on in this painting. And Schiele is trying to tell this logic through a representation of two chairs. As the main focus of the painting is just them. Although they are not representation but they are the content, a message. So ın this painting chairs loses their function as chairs and becomes this idea of being, an entity serving themselves. As humans, we look for concepts and reasons for our surroundings without even thinking about the underlying concepts.
Another important aspect of this painting for me is that it is painted when Schiele was in prison for the allegations of this sexual act as his previous paintings seemed like pornography. Schiele did not change anything in his paintings. These chairs are no different from the figures he painted. They both serve for the same purpose, as the portraits said something much different than just portraits but they are showing or “talking about“ emotions and underlying feelings or perversions. Same thing goes with the chairs, as they are more than representation of chairs but they should be understanded in the context of beings or entities. The idea of meaning something different than portrait or a still life object. And the fact that he did not change his mind or his view of the world and he did not change the concept of his paintings, still he managed to give the same essense and ideas. The chairs are no different than the portraits that called pornpgraphic. He accomplished to show and tell his thoughts real well with chairs as he did with the portraits.
