The present work on paper shows two people, one behind the other, likely both of them with outstretched arms and wearing a type of habit or tunic with wide sleeves. There are other extant sketches, undated and swiftly drawn, of figures with outstretched arms, cf.
Sheet with Figure Study and
Sheet with Figure Study, which, unlike
Sheet with Crucifixion Scene, do not necessarily have Christian connotations. A sketchbook, the content of which allows us to infer that it was used by Egon Schiele (1890–1918) between 1913 and 1916, contains a scene with several figures, one of which is dressed in a similar habit and has both arms stretched out sideways. Underneath the depiction, Schiele noted the word
ensoulment, a term that has positive connotations and means “filling” someone or something “with inner life”. The pages in the sketchbook in immediate proximity to this sketch show scenes on the themes of “interment”, “resurrection” and “rising from the dead”. Schiele, who lost his father at the age of 14 and felt this pain recurrently, often addressed the great contrasts of life and death, and was convinced of “the immortality of all beings”.
KJ, 2024
