Egon Schiele & the Spiders From Mars
Punk Rock was Born in the Early 1900s.
A Discussion Comparing Egon Schiele and David Bowie.
By Laura Atria
Human nature lives under the delusion that what they are doing is new and original; however this is rarely the case. Most people believe that punk rock originally formed around the 1970s through such bands and musicians as The Clash, The Sex Pistols, Iggy Pop, and David Bowie. Many believed that the clothes, presentation, and everything “punk” was new. Punk can be defined as anti-authority and anti-establishment. The unaware, inept society has made this mistake before. Many believe the forefather of the beat movement was Jack Kerouac, when in all reality Walt Whitman started the beat many decades before. The true forefather of punk is Egon Schiele, a painter, a draftsman, a poet, and, most importantly, an anarchist. David Bowie realized this connection before anyone else, fashioning his confrontational and provoking persona after the first punk rocker himself, Mr. Egon Schiele.
It is important to note that Egon Schiele was not only a magnificent painter, but a skilled draftsman as well. Born in Austria in 1890, drawing played a large role in Schiele’s work. From his art to his life-style, everything Schiele did eluded to eroticism. Through contour lines and use of watercolor and gouache, his works and his life style were based upon free-formed experimentation. Schiele viewed living as a way to artistically analyze the fundamental questions of human life. Sadly, his time in this world was all too short; he died suddenly of influenza in 1918 but his impact would span the decade reaching into different genres.
One person who was immensely impacted by Schiele is David Bowie. His birth name of David Jones, he changed it in the 70s so he would not be confused with the singer Davey Jones who was from the band The Monkees. Born in England on January 8, 1947, Bowie was always an artist. For his middle school education, he studied art and graphic design at the Bromley Technical School. In the sixties, Bowie started experimenting with different musical styles as well as other forms of art such as paint, mime, acting, and playwriting. Like Schiele, Bowie used extremes in all his artistic pursuits to express his alienation to conventional societal thought. Very much a struggling artist, he achieved his first major commercial breakthrough with “Space Oddity” a song and album in 1969. The song centers on Major Tom, who is a fictional astronaut, and his launch into space. Then, in 1972, he completed “The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars”, a concept album based around a central character, Ziggy Stardust, which concerned futuristic themes of the apocalypse and gender confusion. This album was the start of his concept albums. At the end of the seventies, Bowie decided to put music on hold and focus primarily on acting; he even played the Elephant Man on Broadway from 1980 to 1981. Bowie has appeared in many films taking on lead roles in movies such as Labyrinth and The Man who Fell to Earth. Originally, he was cast to play Egon Schiele in the 1978 film Wally; however, like many movies, monetary issues became a problem, and the film was eventually dropped.
As one of the most influential writers of Pop Music, Bowie has a wide vocal range and is fluent in fourteen different instruments, including the saxophone. In his song Heroes, Bowie plays the solo sax. Constantly experimenting and pushing the limits, he is a free-formed instrumental power. Compared to Arnold Schoenberg [1], an Austrian American Composer and major landmark of 20th century musical thought, Bowie has an innate ability to transform the audience into the music, as if they themselves are rock and roll. Similarly, Schiele does this with paint, almost taking tubes of paint and transforming them into flesh and blood on canvas, and producing portraits where one can actually feel the heat of the body and see the beat of its heart. . Bowie used his free-formed instrumental power, like Schiele used his free-formed lines, to distinguish his art. Bowie and Schiele were performers that pushed the limits and distinguished themselves through extremes.
Schiele fashioned his art to be anti-establishment and to reject association with the mainstream of his time. Everything Schiele did was laced in sex and death. A rebel in every sense, he even took his anti-establishment theories to the next level. In 1909, he and other dissatisfied students founded the New Art Group. A free-formed experimentation, Schiele’s work was completely his own. Always alluding to eroticism, his portraits in 1910 pointed to intense sexual energies. Schiele used symbolism in hand gestures and color to trigger the viewers’ stimulation. His Seated Male Nude (Self-Portrait) [2], an oil and gouache on canvas, is a supreme example of both Schiele’s use of color and hand placement. Notice the hands are absent, his arms are covering his face, masking himself. The colors on the body are very symbolic. Through color, he was able to excite the viewer; red hews were heated areas while the green hues where calmer, cooler. The nipples, eyes, belly button, penis and testicles are bright cadmium red/orange, while the rest of the body is tinted green. This shows an exaggeration of heat and sexuality.
Everything Schiele did was guised in a punk rock facade. Even his models where dressed in post-modern garb. In a photograph taken in 1910 [3] , Erwin Osen poses with the dancer Moa for Schiele to paint. What first comes to one’s attention is Osen’s hair, sticking straight up in a kind of mohawk hair do. Appearing to wear eyeliner, Osen stands in a naive unassuming pose in contrast to the girl who appears in a somewhat controlling masochistic stance. His clothing is made up of tight black pants or stockings and black top, which look like a modern day plastic bag or trench coat. One would half expect his belt buckle to be handcuffs, hand cuffs worn as belt buckles were common the 1970s punk rock movement, coined by lead singer of The Sex Pistols, Sid Vicious[4]. Even the woman’s clothing resembles that of a 1920s flapper [5] or a Bette Page pin up model [6]. The normative clothing worn during Schiele’s times consisted of long flowing skirts and dresses for the women and men wore dignified two or even three-piece suits. However, this is not how Schiele perceived the world. He saw the future in fashion, and art, before anyone else. Schiele believed in pushing norms, a philosophy similar to the punk rock anti-establishment philosophy. This postmodern-like photograph is a supreme example of how Schiele thought outside of the box, or norm, and always pushed the limits of expectations through free experimentation.
Now Bowie, he is a postmodernist. A wonderful example of Bowie’s post-modernism can be seen in the 1970’s album “The Man Who Sold the World”. The album cover shows a woman with a long dress and long hair. This was not the normal dress for women in the 1970s. The heavy sound of the album related to the rock music at that time; however, the album “The Man Who Sold the World” elicited a different form of music containing elaborate, colorful, erotic melodies. Like Schiele’s art created shock in the 1900’s, Bowie’s fusion of different genres of music created a shock in the music world due to its sound and originality. Bowie also helped further the development of funk and soul music in America with the album “Station to Station”. This album challenged what the audience was expecting, as it was much darker and showed a more gothic, medieval retro version of Bowie’s persona as the Thin White Duke.
If challenging the social norm is punk than Schiele was very punk rock, although he would not have known it. Defying the norm of what was expected of him as an artist in the 1900’s, he often reverses polarities of dark and light spaces to show a stark, somewhat bare, contrast. Seen in his 1912 Autumn Sun and Trees, [7] an oil on canvas, this stark metaphor symbolizes Man’s helplessness before the elements of Nature and Life. Bowie also focused his work on man’s helplessness to the elements of nature. Much of Bowie’s concept characters deal with this idea of the apocalypse and nature taking over human kind: The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders From Mars (1972) ; Aladdin Sane (1973) ; Diamond Dogs (1974). The term concept character is derived from a concept themed album. After the release of Space Oddity, Bowie decided to take this idea of space and evolve it into a fictional world. In Ziggy Stardust, Ziggy, a fictional character, is an alien who has taken human form. His purpose on earth is to warn society about how it is living and bring a message of hope. However, Ziggy is eventually destroyed by his sexual promiscuity, drug intake, and even the fans that once adored him. For his album Aladdin Sane, Bowie used a pun on words for its title; A Lad Insane, this was Bowie’s way of confronting society and human beings sanity and self-preservation. Bowie has described Aladdin Sane as simply, “Ziggy Stardust goes to America”, mixing Bowie’s usual out of this world rock sound with American Blues. Diamond Dogs is another concept themed album. This time Bowie finds his inspiration in George Orwell’s novel Nine-teen Eighty-four mixed with a post-apocalyptic world. All three of these concept albums discuss the same overall theme, human beings and their helplessness against the natural environment.
While Schiele reverses polarities of light and dark in his paintings to express exaggerated emotion, Bowie uses reverse polarities in mixing the serious with the not-so serious. This can be seen in his 1971 album “Honky Dory”. He reverses and mixes the concepts of earth and space, a constant theme in Bowie’s work. Like Schiele’s self portraits, Bowie uses his appearance to reverse the normal conception of gender thus exposing transgender issues at a time when gender issues were “in the closet”. Initially not conventional for that time, Bowie often wore makeup, high heels, and women’s clothing. Bowie’s mixture of gender and exaggerated personality helped create what is now known as Glam Punk. Glam Punk is a term used for the fusion of rock and pop music and is also associated with wearing outrageous clothing, makeup, and hairstyles, particularly platform-soled boots and glitter.
Schiele also liked to defy conventional norms and tweak his own sexuality. Schiele’s practice of feminizing his image is evident in his masturbation self-portraits. His gender dualism is seen through the way he shows or does not show his penis. In Eros [8], the penis is large and protruding, through his ability to activate different hues one can almost see it pulsating in and out of his steady hand, as if threatening the viewer with an exaggerated show of masculinity. In contradiction to Eros is Schiele’s Masturbation “Self Portrait in Black Cloak” [9]. His penis is absent, however through his use of color there is much movement in his hands and lower body. This removal of the penis is not a castration but rather a blurring of gender lines. He uses his hands to mold his penis giving it the allusion of a pink, fleshy vulva. His hands are positioned in a way that represents female genitalia; his fingers are in an upside down ‘v’.
While the year 1910 seemed to be about nameless, androgynous nudes for Schiele, 1911 proved quite the opposite. One might Speculate this could have something to do with his love interest at that time, his model Wally, with whom he lived out of wedlock—that is very punk rock. These explicit and bizarre portraits seemed to be almost all vagina or all penis, exaggerating sex, sexuality, gender, and sin. The all-empowering, devouring vagina most likely symbolizes the womb; an example of this is his 1911 Observed in a Dream. [10] At the same time, Schiele’s self-portraits emphasized the feeling of a penis. The penis can symbolize, and did symbolize for Schiele, a demon lover who uses his phallic object as a weapon. A prime example is his 1911 gouache, watercolor, and black crayon on paper Eros. [11] It is quite interesting to see how Schiele managed to paint his models and also to include himself in their portraits. Once again, similar to Arnold Schoenberg and Bowie with their ability to transform the listeners into the music itself, Schiele is able to take someone else’s portrait and turn it into a depiction of himself.
Both Schiele and Bowie suffer from narcissistic tendencies and feature themselves in their art. Schiele’s narcissism and exhibitionism can be seen most obviously in the poster he produced for his first one-man exhibition held in Vienna in 1915. In this poster he portrays himself as Saint Sebastian, a martyr for his beliefs. [12] Schiele has created a self-portrait with arrows being shot at him, very similar to many of the Baroque and Renaissance paintings of the Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian. [13] This self-portrait of Schiele is also represented on the cover of Bowie’s album Heroes. [14] Bowie’s hand placement and eye gaze is in correlation to Schiele’s hand placement and gaze. Bowie’s hands are in an exaggerated position, fingers split open and tense; his eyes are fierce and his attitude is languid and dreamily lethargic. Bowie’s narcissism is more obvious than that of Schiele’s. Bowie wears his narcissism proudly, as if flaunting it for all to see through his music, lyrics, and characters. Webster’s Online Dictionary actually features David Bowie under the definition of narcissism.[15]
Schiele’s and Bowie’s sexual depictions were characterized by extremes and were deliberately offensive expressions and as such can be defined as punk. While Bowie is very strong in his sexuality, being quoted as saying he is a “try-sexual”, as he will try anything, Schiele struggled with gender and his own physical image throughout his life.[16] This expression of his struggle is apparent in his self-portraits. He often represents himself as androgen. The pinkish tones used in his facial figures are in areas that would normally be accented for women, i.e. with lipstick. He is purposely concealing his sex. He may be a male but he is perfectly content to being assumed a female. This idea of androgynous is resurrected with Bowie, his persona, his alter egos, and his work. Like Scheele’s portraits, Bowie fashioned his stage presence often concealing his sexuality and exaggerating his femininity. This androgyny started what is now known as Glam Punk Rock, a style of music that began in the early 1970s where male performers wore flamboyant clothes and makeup. Like Schiele, Bowie was not scared to question the fundamentals of society, and he asked those around him to do the same.[17] Believing that life should not be taken seriously, Bowie favored dresses and make-up over the normal male attire. “I’m always amazed that people take what I say seriously. I don’t even take what I am seriously.” [18] Both Bowie and Schiele never took themselves too seriously, nor did they take the law too seriously; both have been arrested. This failure to succumb to society’s normative behavior is what helped both artists to push themselves to extraordinary.
Inviting their audiences to move towards a more nature based coexistence; both Bowie and Schiele are pro egalitarianism. Egalitarianism is the belief in human equality especially with respect to social, political, and economic matters. [19] The song “Quicksand” by Bowie is a supreme example. It is essentially about moving away from the god-infused idealism and towards an egalitarian existence, which would be based upon love and shared moments. He sings, “Believe in yourself” which is a warning against human nature and human beings egocentric ways. Schiele’s work implored the notion of egalitarian sex. Holding himself against his culture, he created pictures of lesbian duets and nude young children. Otto Weininger claimed, “[T]he female character is all carnal appetite and that the sexual thrill, was for women, unrivalled in their lives.”[20] Schiele realized this and wanted the world to experience his realization with him. He practiced what he preached and lived the dream. In 1912, he was arrested for kidnapping and seducing a minor. He ended up serving time, just three days, for distributing vulgar, obscene drawings. [21]
Schiele was also a poet. At the end of his life, he began to write prose poetry. These poems have been described as “avowals of his belief.” [22] The Portrait of the Silent Pale Girl is a prose poem written by Schiele in 1910. This poem, in particular, seems to resonate in his paintings.
AN EFFUSION OF MY LOVE, YES. I LOVED EVERYTHING. THE GIRL CAME, I FOUND HERE FACE; HER UNCONSCIOUSNESS HER WORKER’S HANDS, I LOVED EVERYTHING ABOUT HER. I HAD TO DEPICT HER., BECAUSE OF HER STARE AND HER CLOSENESS TO ME. NOW SHE IS GONE, NOW I ENCOUNTER HER BODY [23]
This poem is a fixation of the body, in particular a woman he loves or has loved. Schiele describes her face as unconscious, meaning she appears oblivious and ignorant. He states how her hands are worn from hard labor. However, when she is in Schiele’s presence, he feels resistance. Therefore, Schiele is only able to capture her in her true essence and “encounter her” when she is gone.
Other artists have realized Egon Schiele’s postmodern punk and emulated him in their works. Iggy Pop, an American singer, songwriter, musician, and actor from the same period as Bowie, not only bares a startling resemblance to Schiele’s boney, bare, shrunken portraits, he’s known for exaggerated poses and jagged movement. On the cover of The Idiot [24], Pop’s debut solo album in 1977, his hand positioning and his facial expression bear an uncanny resemblance to many of Schiele’s works: Self-Portrait with Hands on Chest (1910) [25]; Self-Portrait with Chinese Lantern Plant (1912) [26].
Iggy Pop and David Bowie are not the only mimics. The Featherstonehaughs Draw on the Sketch Books of Egon Schiele is a dance first performed in London, 1998, choreographed by Lea Anderson. Formed off of Anderson’s dance in another piece of work is an all-male group known as the Featherstonehaughs. In 2002, the Featherstonehaughs created The Lost Dances of Egon Schiele, a video-dance once again choreographed by Anderson and Kevin McKeirnan. [27] Both of these dances consist of exaggerated motions and hand gestures, similarly to Schiele’s paintings, and jarring, live, rock music. The clothing adorn by the dancers ranges from water-painted suits to body painted tights with jutted out hipbones.
Egon Schiele’s anti-establishment stance on nearly everything society deemed appropriate is what makes him a punk. David Bowie helps draw a direct correlation from punk to Schiele. This connection can be seen in their similarities in the synthesis of different styles of art, anti-establishment attitudes, and rebel personas. Bowie was very much aware of this connection. As a musician, actor, record producer and arranger, David Bowie took Egon Schiele’s reversing polarities and blurring of gender lines and put them into music, transforming lyrics and stage characters after the anti-establishment art of Schiele. Egon Schiele’s artistic expression stands in abusive and violent protest to the societal norms of his time this failure to succumb to society’s normative behavior not only helped push him to levels extraordinary but is also the reason he is the first real punk; hard-core and rebellious.
[1] Vogue September 1, 1978. Jonathan Mantle.
[2] Article by Hans Bisanz. The Vendrome Press: New York. 2006. Page 150.
[3] See Photo Index. Citation 1.
[4] See Photo Index. Citation 16.
[5] See Photo Index. Citation 14.
[6] See Photo Index. Citation 15.
[7] See Photo Index. Citation 3.
[8] See Photo Index. Citation 8.
[9] See Photo Index. Citation 9.
[10] See Photo Index. Citation 7.
[11] See Photo Index. Citation 8.
[12] See Photo Index Page. Citation 4.
[13] See Photo Index Page. Citation 5. Antonio Del Pollaiuolo. 1470s. The Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian.
[14] See Photo Index Page. Citation 6.
[15]http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:jiwtnr1V04MJ:www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definition/narcissism+david+bowie+narcissism&cd=9&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=safari&source=www.google.com
[17] See Photo Index. Citation 10.
[18] Spitz, Marc. David Bowie: A Biography. 2009. Crown Publishers. NY.
[19] http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/egalitarianism
[20] http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:DgPj-MKVCGkJ:www.frieze.com/issue/review/egon_schiele/+schiele+egalitarianism&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=safari&source=www.google.com
[21] See Photo Index. Citation 17.
[22] Vienna 1900: Art, Life & Culture. Ed. Christian Brandstatter. Article by Hans Bisanz. The Vendrome Press: New York. 2006. Page 154.
[23] Egon Schiele: Poems and Letters 1910-1912.
[24] See Photo Index. Citation 11.
[25] See Photo Index. Citation 12.
[26] See Photo Index. Citation 13.
[27] http://www.dancevoices.com/he/dance-discourses/37-drawing-out-the-connections-between-the-past-and-the-present
Bibliography
BOWIE REFERENCES:
Book References:
Spitz , Marc. David Bowie: A Biography. Crown Publishers. NY, 2009.
Online References:
www.teenagewildlife.com/cgi-sys/cgiwrap/torrie/fom.cgi?_recurse=1&file=9
Vogue Sept. 1, 1978 Jonathan Mantle: http://www.bowiegoldenyears.com/articles/780901-vogue.html
Music & Movie References:
Diamond Dog. Vinyl. RCA. 1974.
Aladdin Sane. Vinyl. RCA. 1973.
The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. Vinyl. RCA. 1972.
Heroes. Vinyl. RCA. 1977.
The Man Who Fell To Earth. Movie. Directed by Nicolas Roeg. 1976.
Labyrinth. Movie. Directed by Jim Henson. 1986.
SCHIELE REFERENCES:
Online References:
Book References:
SchrӚder, Klaus Albrecht. Egon Schiele: Eros and Passion. New York: Prestel-Verlag, 1995.
Kallir, Jane. Egon Schiele: The Complete Works. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1990.
Reinhard. Taschen. Schiele: 1890 – 1918. Steiner. Germany, 2000.
Kallir, Jane. Ed. Vertanian, Ivan. Egon Schiele Drawinga & Watercolors. Thames & Hudson. China. 2003.
Leopold, Rudolf. Egon Schiele; Paintings, Watercolours, Drawings, London: Phaidon Press Ltd., 1972.
Powell, Nicolas. The Sacred Spring; The Arts in Vienna 1898-1918, New York Graphic Society, 1974.
[1] Vogue September 1, 1978. Jonathan Mantle.
[2] Article by Hans Bisanz. The Vendrome Press: New York. 2006. Page 150.
[3] See Photo Index. Citation 1.
[4] See Photo Index. Citation 16.
[5] See Photo Index. Citation 14.
[6] See Photo Index. Citation 15.
[7] See Photo Index. Citation 3.
[8] See Photo Index. Citation 8.
[9] See Photo Index. Citation 9.
[10] See Photo Index. Citation 7.
[11] See Photo Index. Citation 8.
[13] See Photo Index. Citation 10.
[14] Spitz, Marc. David Bowie: A Biography. 2009. Crown Publishers. NY.
[15] http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/egalitarianism
[16] http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:DgPj-MKVCGkJ:www.frieze.com/issue/review/egon_schiele/+schiele+egalitarianism&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=safari&source=www.google.com
[17] See Photo Index. Citation 17.
[18] See Photo Index Page. Citation 4.
[19] See Photo Index Page. Citation 5. Antonio Del Pollaiuolo. 1470s. The Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian.
[20] See Photo Index Page. Citation 6.
[21]http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:jiwtnr1V04MJ:www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definition/narcissism+david+bowie+narcissism&cd=9&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=safari&source=www.google.com
[22] Vienna 1900: Art, Life & Culture. Ed. Christian Brandstatter. Article by Hans Bisanz. The Vendrome Press: New York. 2006. Page 154.
[23] Egon Schiele: Poems and Letters 1910-1912.
[24] See Photo Index. Citation 11.
[25] See Photo Index. Citation 12.
[26] See Photo Index. Citation 13.
[27] http://www.dancevoices.com/he/dance-discourses/37-drawing-out-the-connections-between-the-past-and-the-present
