Herbstbaum in bewegter Luft („Winterbaum“)

Starting in the fall of 1911, Egon Schiele lived in the small, picturesque town of Neulengbach. As in Krumau, the surrounding landscape inspired him to create exceptional works. Autumn Tree in Stirred Air shows a delicate plant which resembles something closer to a grapevine than a tree. The branches and twigs emerge from a grayish, shimmering sky and spread over the painting’s entire surface. Rudolf Leopold remarked upon the sky’s unusual color effect by noting that Schiele “never before nor after painted with such tenderness, with such an unmatched abundance of gray tones and delicately applied nuances.” The unconventional composition transforms nature into an almost abstract structure. At the same time, the violent movements performed by the thin branches of autumnal plants reflect Schiele’s anthropomorphic conception of nature. The artist would often contemplate on his observations of human traits in nature. For example, in a letter written in 1913, he wrote: “Everywhere one recalls similar movements in the human body, similar stirrings of joy and sorrow in the plants.”