Читать книгу Egon Schiele - Esther Selsdon - Страница 15

There are approximately 100 self-portraits including several nude studies of Schiele. Study of the male nude was obligatory at the academy, psychological self-portraits, however, apart from richard gerstl in 1908, were an exception. The self-portrait as nude study positions the artist not only as a person of insight, but also in his physical being. Schiele did not act as a voyeur in baring his models, rather, he brought himself into play. The nude study depicting a rigid member in the act of masturbation went a step further and shows he was a man fascinated by his own sexuality. This reversal in passivity accompanies the setting of a new goal: to be looked at. The urge to look is indeed autoerotic from the beginning; it surely has an object but finds it in its own body. In turn, showing the genitals is well known as an apotropaic action. Accordingly, freud interprets “the showing of the penis and all its surrogates” as the following statement: “i am not afraid of you, i defy you.”