A Study on the Erotic Motif of Egon Schiele’ Paintings

• Main Authors: Wang Li-Hsin, 王立欣
• Other Authors: 高榮禧
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2011
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/68778982066771183161

碩士 === 國立新竹教育大學 === 藝術教育與創作碩士班 === 99 === Abstract A Study on the Erotic Motif of Egon Schiele’ Paintings Egon Schiele (1890-1918) was the expressionist artist in Vienna, Austria, in the early twentieth century. There were a lot of nude paintings or sex scenes in his works. Schiele did not only boldly describe the private parts but also take masturbation as subject of his painting. There are three parts in the research. In the first part of this research, I analyze Schiele’s growth and the background behind his works by historical research methods. Owing to the war of the Vienna, the death of family due to venereal disease, and the inspiration of desire and lust, Schiele’s nude paintings reveal the upsurge of sexual desire. Schiele tried to use the power of art to attack middle-class hypocrite, and took sex, desire, lust, and death into his works. In the second part of this research, I discuss the change of form and style in Schiele’s nude paintings created by different time. My topics include the psychological exploration, the liberation of sex and desire, and the interaction of sex and death in Schiele’s works. In the third part of this research, I analyze the meaning of Schiele’s nude paintings by Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalysis and the modern implications in Schiele’s masturbatory nude paintings by his transformation of instinctive desire, narcissistic satisfaction, and autoerotic pleasure. Schiele used the nude shape and exaggerative color to emphasize the nipples and genitals. He took body as medium to express his mental experience, and tried to express his curiosity about self sexual exploration through nude paintings. Schiele didn’t praise the pleasure of sex, but described his sexual obsession and anxiety to death. Schiele displayed his subconsciousness by nude paintings, turned his trauma into art, and attempted to expose love and hate motif brought by sex. He used true physiological responses to explore himself deeply and used exhibitionist self to satisfy his own narcissism. Men in Schiele’s nude paintings stopped thinking rationally, and indulged in the sexual pleasure. Women in Schiele’s paintings were erotic bodies, rather than under cultural restriction. They satisfied their sexual desire by masturbation. The authentic image of women criticized also the patriarchal cultural tradition. The nudes in Schiele’s paintings had no sexual taboos. Autoerotism attacked constraints of society and middle-class hypocracy. The masturbation motif in Schiele’s works represented creativity and powerful subversion to our modern society. Keyword：Egon Schiele、Eroticism、Nude Painting、Masturbation