Ilja Jakovlev

Essay. Comparison of Egon Schiele’s “Death and the Maiden” (1915-16) and Oskar Kokoschka’s “The Bride of the Wind” (1913–1914)

Introduction

In that essay, I'm going to research and compare two oil paintings, both made by young artists from Austria-Hungary imperium in the beginning of XX century. Firstable, I will open the historical and social context, namely how the collective trauma of the First World War and the collapse of the imperium affected the contemporary generation of artists. In the next section I will also touch upon the aspect of Schiele's and Kokoschka's psychological states and sexuality, which, among other things, and as concerns both paintings, were influenced by some traumatic events from their lives. After that I will go deeply into formal and iconographic analysis. In conclusion of this essay I will summarise all analysis together and see the result of this comparison and relationships between both artworks. 

For the research I am going to read 4 articles written and published by different authors and institutions as well as one online resources and platforms. Therefore, since the oeuvre of Schiele and Kokoschka was my personal interest for a long time, I am going to use the knowledge about these artists and their artworks, that I got from several books, catalogues and museum’s exhibitions visits (Leopold museum, Vienna 2024; Albertinum, Dresden 2023; New National Art Gallery and Berliner Gallery, Berlin 2023; Germania National Museum, Nuremberg 2023; Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg 2023). 

Additionally, I will also use different online open resources for biographical data and common historical facts approvement. These materials I am going to use as references for a particular essay.  

   Illustrations of both artworks can be seen at the end of essay, before the bibliography.
Historical and social context. Influence of World War I on European art in 1914 - 1918

The assassination of the Austrian heir to the throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, on the 28th of June 1914 in Sarajevo was the fatal trigger of World War I. Owing to a complex system of political alliances, by the beginning of August much of Europe (many of whose rulers were related either through blood or marriage) was at war. The initial conflict between Austria-Hungary and Serbia soon escalated to include Germany, Russia, France, Ottoman Empire, Great Britain and Japan. 

Soon it was clear that Europe met a great and scary war - a new type of war, which didn't exist before. The mobilization started fast and was taken by many people quite enthusiastically, a lot of them came to the front voluntarily. 

Thousands of artists, writers, musicians and other intellectuals among Europe were mobilized to the war as well, some of them by their own wish, some not. In this situation also found themselves young Schiele and Kokoschka. Schiele was mobilized at the age of 25 in 1915 but due to the high positioned patrones he stayed between Vienna and Prague dealing mostly with administrative work and documentations. Even so, after 14 days in the army he wrote: “I am a soldier now and have just lived through the hardest 14 days of my life”. The experience of war even “behind the scenes” was a big trigger for him. 

An even more difficult situation was with Kokoschka, who went to the front at the age of 29 in the same year of 1915 by his own wish. Kokoschka was participating in battles on the Galician front and got insured. He was also in captivity which left a huge traumatic impact on his life. After he returned from war his psychological health was not stable anymore and he went through difficult depressions and post-traumatic like issues. 

It was clear that such a big collective trauma as World War I will bring a huge impact on every aspect of life from new society order to fundamental changes in art and culture as well. As with most art made during wartime, there was no single dominant style after the conflict. Even within individual countries or art groups, artists couldn’t find one approach that could fully express the shared trauma people had experienced. The wide range of formal approaches, often explored by the same artists, reflected the multiplicity of personal responses and the profound difficulty of finding a visual language capable of expressing the inexpressible.

During the war, artists’ views changed greatly. At first, many were excited by nationalism, the military spectacle, and hopes for renewal or a more democratic future. But over time, this enthusiasm turned into sadness, disappointment, and grief. In the later years of the war, many artists became pacifists and began to question morality, blaming not only the institutions responsible for the destruction but also themselves for taking part in it. Many artists returned from war changed their visual language completely. They tried to illustrate, process and analyze war and all its atrocities. From a visual perspective expressionism as a visual artistic style was suitable and harsh enough to depict it. Started officially in 1912 before war, it became extremely convenient to visualise scariness of war (e.g. German expressionism: Otto Dix, Max Beckmann, Käthe Kollwitz). The same processes happened in the field of literature as well. 

At the same time not all artists “stucked” with the topic of war. Some of them continued to work on different subjects-matter but were still influenced by overlooked traumas, which could be seen in general expressiveness of visual forms, cutted and broken compositions, dark palettes and choice of depicted scenes. This background influence could be seen in artworks of Kokoschka and Schilele as well. 

Personal traumas. Sexuality, relations with women and postwar traumas
Throughout their lives, both artists maintained dynamic and often tragic relationships with women and with sexuality itself. Egon Schiele, for instance, was accused in 1912 of corrupting minors. During a police search of his studio, numerous nude drawings were found and classified as “pornographic,” leading to his 3 day arrest. Indeed, when looking at Schiele’s works, we can observe a wide range of emotions and attitudes toward women - their corporeality, sexuality, and social as well as gender roles. In his paintings, Schiele does not merely depict women as objects of desire or from an aesthetic standpoint; he also portrays them as mothers, daughters, wives, and even as embodiments of death. Nevertheless, his canvases reveal unresolved emotional conflicts and a deeply complex relationship with the female figure in his own life.
Schiele was almost fanatically attached to his mother and, in some sense, never completed the process of psychological separation from her. After the death of his father in 1905, this bond apparently became even stronger and more significant. During his illegal relationship with his model Wally Neuzil, he moved with her to Český Krumlov - his mother’s birthplace, a town he had never lived in but evidently idealized. In 1915, he married Edith Harms without breaking off his relationship with Wally, though Edith eventually forced him to end it. This fact also demonstrates that Schiele disregarded the still-conservative institutions of marriage and family, preferring “free relationships.” His life with Edith was short-lived: in 1918, during the final months of the war, Schiele died of Spanish flu, three days after the death of his pregnant wife.
Given the complexity and multilayered nature of his relationship to women, femininity, and gendered social roles, it becomes evident why female figures appear in so many forms and narratives in his work.
In the painting Death and the Maiden (1915-16), we see at first glance a rather classical juxtaposition of life, youth, and vitality with aging, death, and oblivion, embodied in two figures - male and female - dressed in contrasting tones and forms. This theme may have been inspired by the paintings of his mentor and close friend Gustav Klimt - The Three Ages of Woman (1905) and Death and Life (1908-09, 1916).
Through the depiction of these two intertwined figures, Schiele captured several of his deepest fears and traumas - those linked to war, the loss of loved ones, the aging of his beloved mother, and the overall helplessness of humanity in the face of (global) catastrophe. This painting was also painted in the year of final breakup with Wally, so as a Kokoschka, it's possible that through the topic of death, Schiele reflected here on his personal relationship drama. 
Oskar Kokoschka also experienced turbulent relationships with women. Having had little prior romantic experience, he began a relationship in 1912 with Alma Mahler - an elegant, slightly older woman from a wealthy and influential Viennese family. Mahler dominated their relationship and openly continued affairs with other men, something she did not hide from Kokoschka. It was perhaps a kind of mutual role-play, though its ending proved devastating for Kokoschka. Mahler eventually left Kokoschka just at the beginning of the war, in 1914, and he was unable to recover from the loss of what he saw as the central love of his life. The painting he started when they were together in 1913 but finished it was modified after the breakup in the next year. In 1915 he went to the front. 
Returning from the Galician front wounded and deeply traumatized, Kokoschka commissioned a life-sized doll in Alma’s likeness - a surrogate companion that he later wrote about in his book Fetisch (1925). His somewhat masochistic and unconventional approach to love, relationships, and sexuality had already manifested earlier, notably in his 1909 play Mörder, Hoffnung der Frauen (Murderer, Hope of Women), which caused a scandal in Vienna. In it, a man, threatened by an aggressive woman’s sexual desire, regains his lost power by killing her. The premiere provoked a riot, and Kokoschka was immediately expelled from art school.
In his painting The Bride of the Wind (1913-14), Kokoschka directly alludes to his relationship - and its tragic end - with Alma Mahler. The clearly recognizable lovers lie in a boat resembling a vast seashell, enveloped in the swirling mists of another world. Their vessel floats, their love seemingly too powerful to remain earthbound. The dominant color scheme is a subdued, cold blue-green, reinforcing the mood of distance, melancholy, and emotional exhaustion. 
   It is very realistic, that experience both of them lived over during the war aggravated already existed traumas and unstable psychological health. Both artists depicted their phobias and traumas which are different, but in both cases illustrated similarly - by using conflict between male and female figures with spiculations on depression, death and resistance. 
Comparison. Formal analyze

The painting Death and the Maiden was created by Egon Schiele in 1915-16 while he was living in Vienna. Executed in oil on canvas, it measures 150 by 180 cm. The work is currently housed in the Belvedere Museum in Vienna.

The composition of the painting is distinctly centralized; the viewer’s gaze immediately falls upon the principal element of the work - two interacting figures. The left figure, representing Death, is wrapped in a cloak-like black-brown garment that envelops the body from all sides. Only the legs below the knees, the head, and the hands remain uncovered. The left figure appears to be male, though it retains an androgynous quality due to the lack of defining details. The male figure kneels, leaning against a slope of earth, embracing the female figure to the right while lowering his head toward her.

The female figure, positioned slightly lower and to the right, also kneels, stretching upward as she embraces the male figure from below, supporting his arms and encircling him from behind. Her head is tightly framed by three elements - the man’s head, his hand, and his arm. This head, enclosed by his embrace, becomes the compositional and emotional center of the entire painting - the point of their connection.

Observing the faces of both figures reveals a striking contrast in their gazes. The man’s eyes resemble the frenzied stare of Ivan the Terrible from Ilya Repin’s Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan on 16 November 1581 (1885): the same expression of madness, with eyes wide and almost bottomless. His gaze is unfocused, directed not at the female figure but somewhere inward. The woman’s eyes, on the other hand, are almost invisible - yet one still senses their presence. Both gazes lack a clear target and seem absorbed in deep contemplation.

The woman wears a light, almost summery dress of warm tones and loose cut. Her hair is styled in a bob, a hairstyle that would later become extremely fashionable in the 1920s. She is barefoot, whereas the male figure wears shoes resembling Dutch wooden clogs once used by peasants for work.

Both figures are positioned on a large white fabric surface, painted with multiple folds and variations of color and texture, similar to the woman’s dress. As in much of Schiele’s work, the composition is defined by a strong triadic contrast between black and dark brown, white, and a third group, in this case of orange-reddish hues. The visible parts of the bodies are rendered with great tonal variety; small accents of green and red appear as contrasting patches against the woman’s pale skin and the man’s pastel flesh. The lips, joints, and bones of both figures - and the woman’s cheeks - are marked with red tones.

The background remains relatively neutral. It depicts a rugged, earthen terrain painted predominantly in yellow and ochre hues, with patches of moss or grass rendered in a deep malachite green. The sky is almost absent - merely a thin yellowish strip at the top of the canvas.

The dominant color palette is warm, with cool blues tempering the whites of the textile and the woman’s legs. As is typical of Schiele’s technique, the entire surface shimmers like a kaleidoscope, full of subtle, almost fractal variations in tone and temperature that generate visual tension and rhythm.

The painting The Bride of the Wind was created by Oskar Kokoschka between 1913 and 1914. It is oil on canvas and measures 180.4 by 220.2 cm. It is currently part of the collection of the Kunstmuseum Basel.

As in Schiele’s work, Kokoschka employs a similar centralized composition, though with a diagonal orientation. The viewer’s eye is immediately drawn to the central figures - again, a man and a woman. The painting is widely recognized as a double portrait of Kokoschka himself and his love, Alma Mahler.

Unlike in Schiele’s composition, the figures here lie side by side on the same plane. Their relaxed poses suggest intimacy and repose. The man’s gaze is directed into the distance, charged with existential reflection or quiet anguish, while the woman’s eyes are closed - perhaps in peace, perhaps in sleep.

The couple rests on a bed-like form resembling the interior of a seashell with two curved edges. A textile covering - possibly a blanket - outlines their lower bodies, while their upper bodies remain exposed. The man’s form is gaunt and sharply contoured, with visible ribs and collarbones, whereas the woman’s figure is soft and rounded. As in Schiele’s painting, particular emphasis is placed on the hands, but here man's hands touch with each other nervously. The line formed by their heads and hands becomes the focal compositional element.

Like Schiele, Kokoschka pays little attention to the background, which is rendered far more abstractly and expressively. The entire backdrop consists of sweeping, agitated brushstrokes in cold tones, evoking a stormy sky or turbulent sea.

Despite the figures’ stillness, the painting as a whole conveys an intense sense of movement and energy. As with Schiele, Kokoschka constructs a complex network of primary and secondary tones that interact dynamically - from soft pinks to nearly black blues. The dominant palette, however, remains blue-green, cool, and somber, underscoring the emotional turbulence beneath the calm surface.

Comparison. Iconographic analyze

   In Schiele’s work, we see a recurring theme that he explored throughout his artistic career - the conflict between death and youth. In a sense, his fascination with and contemplation of this subject proved prophetic, as both he and his wife died at a young age.

In this painting, that conflict is represented through two figures. The pose of Death is not mythological here; it is a fully humanized male figure with natural anatomy. Schiele portrays death as a natural process - something inevitable, something that always walks beside man, almost parallel to him. The choice of a young woman as Death’s counterpart can be interpreted as the idea that death can come for anyone, at any time. Schiele himself had witnessed the death of one of his younger sisters as a child. Death here does not seem to frighten; rather, it appears almost consoling, gently embracing the woman. This subject takes us back to a theme  that has been entrenched in European art since the Middle Ages, and which has now been reinterpreted as yet another product of vertical and patriarchal relations. Of course, the male figure depicted here as a Death is only one interpretation, but it seems the most appropriate and believable precisely because of its rather archaic visual basis.

The contrast between the woman and Death is also expressed through the use of color - opposing vibrant, fiery youth to the somber and dark essence of mortality.

Within the context of the trauma of war that Schiele was experiencing at that time, this conflict gained additional intensity, emphasizing the fragility of human life in the face of catastrophe. Especially striking are the deliberately rendered hands of the woman, appearing unnaturally thin and brittle, as if about to break - though, in reality, they are simply obscured by the man’s sleeve.

The overall composition - the rocky background, the poses, and the white drapery - evokes Renaissance and late Medieval paintings on biblical subjects, such as Pietà, The Kiss of Judas, depictions of Saint Mary Magdalene, or scenes of blessing which gives more spirituality and mystic feelings of the painting. 

Despite the traditional composition, the visual language of Schiele’s painting evokes feelings of fear and despair. This is reinforced by the jagged, fragile lines and the inner “discomfort” of the piece - the figures kneeling, masses leaning in opposite directions (the figures and the landscape seem to fall away from each other), and the near-total absence of sky - that symbol of hope, space, and air.

Kokoschka’s painting, in contrast, feels more serene and peaceful, though it too conveys deep fear and emotional pain - in his case, the anguish of losing his beloved and his inability to cope with her departure.

In this work, the seashell plays an important metaphorical role. Unlike Schiele, who was apparently inspired by religious Christian imagery, Kokoschka draws upon classical mythology - specifically, the Birth of Venus. The very title of the painting, The Bride of the Wind, can be interpreted in two ways: in the myth of Venus’s birth, she is carried to shore by Zephyr, the west wind; but the wind might also symbolize Alma herself - constantly moving, shifting from one man to another, geographically and emotionally.

The broad, expressive brushstrokes may also represent Kokoschka’s emotional landscape - confusion, fear, and the chaos of emotions experienced during heartbreak. The dominant cool tones sustain a mood of melancholy, sadness, resentment, and even depression.

In both paintings, the moments of contact are essential. In Schiele’s work, Death and the woman occupy different physical and mental spaces, yet they embrace. In Kokoschka’s, although the two figures lie together on the same plane, they do not truly touch - Alma no longer belongs to him; she is near, yet distant, irretrievably gone. Interesting also the position and role of the textile piece - in Kokoschka's artwork it hides things because it is placed above figures, but Schiele used it as a “table cover” to represent, open and justify what is happening on the painting. The white colour of its textile piece also gives a religious impression of pureness and holiness.  

Ultimately, both works evoke similar sensations: inevitability, fear, pain, sorrow, hopelessness - yet also a strange nostalgia, romanticism, sensuality, and finally, a quiet acceptance of what has been and what is to come.

Conclusion 

Analyzing Schiele’s painting, we see that the male figure, representing Death, appears to comfort and accept the woman. Strangely, there is an intimate, almost tender connection between them - something resembling confession, consolation, and acceptance born out of exhaustion and deep existential fear.

In Kokoschka’s work, the relationship between the man and the woman is frozen; he seems to already depict the doll he would later create after the war - a mere presence to lie beside him, to share his bed. Their relationship feels cold and lifeless, as though it has already reached its inevitable end.

In Schiele’s work, the end signifies the woman’s death - her complete surrender to Death, her passage to the other side. In Kokoschka’s case, however, the end seems to come for the man - for himself. Unable to cope with separation, he cannot accept the loss and the “departure” of his beloved, and now his life seems to have lost its purpose, destined to come to a standstill.

Both artists were deeply affected by the war and its horrors, which reawakened and intensified their pre-existing traumas and inner conflicts - particularly those related to sexuality, their relationships with women, and, on a broader level, their fears of death, loss, and unrealized potential.

These two works as a whole reflect the avant-garde tendency toward emotional sincerity and unfiltered psychological expression. Amid the resurgence of Decadent aesthetics, the influence of Freudian psychoanalysis, and the turbulence of geopolitical change, the art of this era - especially Expressionism - captures the anxieties and introspection of a young generation that would soon face even greater collective trauma in some years, while in the interwar years living through a mad carnival of lust, temptation, and collective pain hidden beneath the glamorous surface of cabarets and nightclubs.

In both paintings, emotional turmoil is no longer glorified or romanticized. It is presented directly and viscerally - clear and tangible despite the expressive visual language - as art becomes truly empathetic and capable of intimate human contact. Compared to XIX century works on similar themes, which often portrayed emotional struggle through classical grandeur and rationalism, Expressionism begins to illustrate life as it feels, not as it appears.

Schiele’s and Kokoschka’s works were created under similar conditions of anxiety and fear, provoked by multiple factors - war, the collapse of old orders, childhood and adolescent traumas, struggles with sexuality, and alienation. Yet, while they tell different stories, they both address timeless human concerns. The unique visual languages through which these stories are told are what make their art so profoundly compelling.

Full version with references and illustrations is available here.