Egon Schiele:
Self-Seer II (Death and Man), 1911 (Selbstseher II (Tod und Mann)
Oil on canvas
80,5×80 cm
©Leopold Museum
(Kallir P193)

Museum Note:
Painted in 1911, during a period of intense psychological and artistic exploration, Self-Seers II (Death and Man) marks a pivotal moment in Egon Schiele’s (1890–1918) early Expressionist phase. In this square-format composition, Schiele revisits the motif of the self-portrait as a portrait of a self in crisis—an individual who has lost the security of being “indivisible.” As in an earlier version of the theme, now lost, he disrupts the unity of the figure by introducing a shadowy double.

Self-Seers strives for a heightened self-perception that transcends rational recognition, accompanied by an act of distancing: the central figure, eyes closed in introspection, is mirrored by a pale revenant. The notion of dissociation is further emphasized by a hand that protrudes from below—unclaimed by either figure—suggesting an external force, a subconscious gesture, or a fragment of the self that resists integration.

Schiele’s probing, provisional drafts of identity—visual expressions of psychic fracture—form one of the most potent and emblematic strands of his oeuvre. They stand as symbolic cornerstones of Austrian Expressionism, capturing the existential unease of a generation on the brink of rupture.