Leopold Czihaczek at the Piano, 1907

The painting shows Leopold Czihaczek (1842–1929), Egon Schiele’s uncle and guardian,
playing the piano in the music room of his apartment on Zirkusgasse in Vienna’s Leopoldstadt district, where, according to eye witnesses, he kept two grand pianos. In terms of style, Schiele’s brushwork reveals late-Impressionist tendencies, combining them with the muted palette of pastel colors characteristic of his early oeuvre. In terms of composition, the artist differentiated between illuminated and shadowed sections which allowed him to dramaturgically handle the uncommonly large horizontal format despite the chosen perspective. As if by way of appeasement, he countered this with a unified dynamic of brushstrokes all leading towards the lower right corner of the depiction. The close-up view of the piano player, his head shown in lost profile framed by the bright window panes and the resulting focus on the sheets of music combine to convey an effect of complete immersion in sound. This is emphasized by the hands which the artist rendered in a deliberately blurry manner, as if detached from the rest of the body.

VG 2022