Reclining Woman with Raised Skirt

A woman reclines, her body angled sharply on the paper, her skirt pushed up to reveal her legs and torso. Her right arm extends towards the viewer, hand open, while her left arm bends behind her head. Schiele’s charcoal lines are stark and immediate, capturing a sense of vulnerability and unease. The figure's gauntness and the almost skeletal quality of her limbs are characteristic of the Expressionist movement, which sought to convey inner emotional states rather than objective reality. The raw, unvarnished depiction of the human form, often with a sense of psychological tension, was central to much of the art created in Vienna during this period. This drawing, made in the final year of Schiele's life, offers a direct, unflinching gaze at the subject, a hallmark of his approach to the figure.