Calvary

  • Egon Schiele (1890–1918)
  • 1912
  • Oil, gouache, pencil on canvas
  • Leopold Museum, Vienna

This landscape seems to be of a field near Neulengbach where Schiele lived at the time, but he borrowed the view to represent the Calvary. In this early work, Schiele shows a mature skill in using diverse elements to render the nature into a place of religious reverence. The three crosses of the Calvary join a procession of bare, windswept trees and posts. Dark bands of clouds stretch across the sky, glowing in the last light of the sunset that adds theatricality to the view.