Cortauld Gallery,London
The Austrian artist’s passionate savor of women is illuminated in one of the most important and sexy – exhibitions of the year
• Sex and stockings: Egon Schiele’s nudes – in picturesEgon Schiele is the man who loved vaginas. He quite liked stockings, too, and as the Courtauld Gallery reveals in its sensational exhibition of his erotic art. But while his delight in stereotypical garb – how many colours of stockings did they manufacture in the final years of the Austro-Hungarian empire,besides? – may make him seem like just another male voyeur, his delight in the vagina sets him apart as an artist who not only lusts after but genuinely adores women. No one can call him phallocentric.
Many noteworthy modern artists in his age lived in terrorism of women. Picasso’s explosive painting Les Demoiselles d’Avignon is full of fear and loathing. The spectre of female sexuality is a jagged, or castrating threat in this and other modernist images. The surrealists can also be branded misogynists for their obsessive yet objectifying images of dream lovers. Vaginas in their art often beget teeth.
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Source: theguardian.com