Squatting Female Nude, 1910

Following a predominance of male nudes and nude self-portraits at the start of the year, the artist began creating numerous depictions of female nudes in the second half of the year. Apart from his younger sister Gertrude, he mostly used two models who have yet to be identified by name. One of them posed for Squatting Female Nude. In his depictions of nudes from this period, Egon Schiele (1890–1918) breaks with conventions by staging the nudity of the bodies in a demonstratively unembellished manner and even employing shortening and fragmentation. Framed by a blinding white contour that resembles an aura, the body is emphasized even more strongly in its corporeality, which is as sensual as it is vulnerable. The depicted does not tolerate the gaze passively, but exposes its objectifying character.
A comparison with male nudes from the same period, such as Nude Self-Portrait (/en/object/2461), reveals that Schiele does not differentiate between the sexes in his stagings. He sometimes even blurs the lines and focuses on a corporeality that seems to transcend gender boundaries.

VG, 2022