Wise to Art

Souren Melikian in his IHT column has been fustigating several times lately the irritating tendency of auction houses to accompany their sales with an ever more profuse logorrhea. Hired intellectuals are put to the arduous task of conceptualizing artwork, hoping as such to build interest and gain momentum for upcoming sales. Melikian complains about this novel strategy so evidently focused at the ignorant newly rich, of late dominant actors on the auction scene.

This rings a bell when looking at a plain and insignificant 1913 drawing by Egon Schiele featured in one of Christie’s February sales. Here’s a detail of the drawing and part (!) of the profuse commentary:

Stehende Frau mit Schuen und Strümpfen is notable for its use of electrifying ultramarine pigment that animates the figure and accentuates the textural variation between hair, clothing and delicately tinted flesh. By contrasting the soft, fluid contours of the model’s pale body against the gesturally painted and richly coloured garment she is presumably removing, Schiele not only anchors the figure in the expanse of space that is otherwise devoid of environmental markers but also draws attention to her pelvic region, which he further emphasizes with a sharp blue chevron. In doing so, Schiele purposefully heightens the sexual significance of the image, thereby signalling his belief that all humans are at the mercy of their primal urges.

It is clear that after having forced ourselves to read the entire accompanying text, while focusing our attention on the pelvic region, the trivial sketch presented to our eye seems to take on quite another dimension…