Egon Schiele (1890-1918)

Painted in 1907, the present landscape dates from Schiele's formative years at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Vienna, a period when the then seventeen-year-old artist was beginning to cultivate his unique artistic style. Influenced by the tradition of the Academy as well as his more radical contemporaries in Vienna, the young Schiele incorporated various stylistic approaches into his early paintings, infusing his scenes with rich coloration and a strong sense of line: an indication of the future direction that his art would take.

In creating his early, small scale studies, Schiele often ventured outside of Vienna, encouraged by his professors to adopt the en plein air technique of the French Impressionists. At the Academy, formal painting techniques were stressed, and professors primarily turned to classical works, as well as fashionable French styles, for inspiration. Around this time, in 1905, the Vienna Secessionist movement had disbanded, and prominent members such as Gustav Klimt and Koloman Moser began working independently in their respective studios. Schiele had been an eager fan of the movement, having seen their work upon moving to Vienna. As his fascination with the Vienna Secessionists increased, so did his frustration with the conservatism of the Academy, and he left in 1909 after his third year.

With Wiese mit Dorf im Hintergrund II, Schiele advanced the traditional techniques stressed by his tutors, creating a landscape flooded with luminous daylight and naturalistic tones. His rendering of the clouded sky is particularly skillful, as he discerned tonality and light with a careful eye, lending the scene a depth and overall gauzy effect. This Impressionistic rendering of the landscape gained a Secessionist character through the division of the pictorial fields into varying colored and structured stripes. This subtle allusion to Schiele’s contemporaries was a testament to his desire for experimentation and a hint to the direction that Schiele’s work would take. In 1907, the same year the present work was executed, Schiele introduced himself to Klimt, likely in the Museum Café near the Secession building in the heart of Vienna. On a visit to Klimt's studio, soon after this first meeting, he showed the elder artist his own work and asked if he had any talent, Schiele received from Klimt the now famous reply, "Talent? Yes, too much talent."