Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

"OH, ART!--what would I not do for you!" So wrote Egon Schiele in 1912 from Neulengbach prison. This large volume, from the rich Leopold Collection in Vienna, is not only representative of Schiele's art but includes 21 of his "unknown" contemporaries, as well as highlights by famous Klimt and Kokoschka. Reproductions are excellent. There is also an interview with Leopold himself and a few long and thought-provoking essays by Szeemann, Schroder, Werkner, and Leopold. An illustrated biography covers all 24 Austrian expressionists. Themes of subjectivity of perception, psychic agitation, painterly energy, symbolism, narcissism, a profound anxiety, and distress between eros and thanatos are revealed mainly through self-portraits, portraits, nudes, and rural and urban landscape. The art is dramatized to the utmost. Schroder's question could be the summary: "What kind of world is it that confronts Schiele's truculent, retricent, forbidding, withdrawn, resigned, aggressive, doubting despairing gaze?" The paintings suggest that perhaps the Austrian expressionists in stressing the beauty of "ugliness" were consumed in flames and distorted anatomy, and that the reality is merely an optical illusion. This is a tribute to all the expressionists, and Leopold's collection is a true inspiration. Recommended for all art collections. -I. Spalatin, East Texas State University