Reclining, Half-Clothed Girl (Liegendes, halbbekleidetes Mädchen) by Egon Schiele, 1911

ABOUT THIS PAINTING

Egon Schiele’s Reclining Half-Clothed Girl (1911) is a portrait of defiance, vulnerability, and desire – twisted together in a single frame. Schiele was just twenty-one when he painted this young woman. His own longing is evident, but so too is his unease. The model, her identity unknown, sprawls across the canvas, both exposed and guarded. Her body is contorted in that unmistakable Schiele way – limbs angular, flesh raw, a study in tension. Her eyes are closed, in an approximation of lust, or perhaps simply exhaustion. The very image seems a play on the trope of Sleeping Beauty – only here, the fantasy is unsettled, resisting softness.

Schiele never idealised his subjects. He stripped them of pretence, laying bare their bodies, their hunger, their unease. And here, this girl – perhaps one of the many muses, models, or sex workers who sat for him – is caught in the space between seduction and detachment. Fabric surrounds her like a bloom, but she is not offering herself. The redness of her lips, the exposed breasts, the seemingly  outstretched hand – she is alluring, but refuses to be easily consumed.

In Reclining Half-Clothed Girl, Schiele captures not just the physical form, but the complexities of power, gaze and autonomy. There is undoubtedly eroticism here, but also something more visceral – the truth of the body: imperfect, restless, utterly human. The flesh tones are mottled, streaked as if with bruising. The girl may be undressed, but she is not undone. Even with her eyes closed, she refuses possession. There is no peace here, no surrender  – only the tension of a body held between the desire of the artist and the will of the subject. It is this friction, this refusal to yield entirely, that makes Schiele’s work so unsettling. She exists in a moment that cannot be resolved  – too alive to be an object, too weary to fight, caught forever in the push and pull of wanting and being wanted. – Sophie Haydock

Painted: 1911
Location: Vienna, Austria
Repository: The ALBERTINA Museum
Artist: Egon Schiele
Original Format: Watercolor and pencil