Photo/Illutration A special exhibition of Egon Schiele’s art at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum (Naoko Kawamura)

I was a high school student in Italy when I first saw works by the Austrian artist Egon Schiele (1890-1918) at an exhibition in Venice 39 years ago.

Their impact on me was so tremendous, it changed my value system. Everything about Schiele jolted me, from his avant-garde, high-strung lines to the fact he only lived for 28 years.

I saw a sizable selection of his works for the first time in quite a while at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, where a special exhibition titled “Egon Schiele from the collection of the Leopold Museum--Young Genius in Vienna 1900” is showing.

On my way to the museum, I wondered if age could have eroded all the shock and awe I'd felt in my teenage soul. But that worry proved completely unfounded: I was overwhelmed anew by his self-portraits and nudes.

A precocious genius, Schiele was prolific despite being lambasted as “lewd and immoral.” But when World War I began, he was called up for military service, which made it difficult for him to focus on being creative. He then succumbed to the Spanish flu just before the war ended.

Returning to that period in history, I cannot help but think of a certain dictator who was one year Schiele’s senior and aspired to be an artist--Adolf Hitler (1889-1945).

Schiele was admitted to the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna at age 16. Hitler applied for admission the following year, as well as the year after, but was rejected both times.

His test results said, "Talent: Poor. Entrance test painting: Fail," according to notes to Hitler’s political manifesto called “Mein Kampf.”

Hitler chose a career in politics, instead, and became fascinated with grand, classical architecture. Nazi Germany’s denouncement of the Vienna school’s ultramodern movement as “decadent art” had a lasting influence, and Schiele’s works remained unrecognized for many years after his death.

As an artist who raced through a world war and a pandemic, so to speak, Schiele’s fame began to rise only in the last half-century or so.

Peace is needed for his kind of edgy art to be appreciated, and that’s precisely why I want young people, who will be alive in the future, to look at Schiele’s works.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Feb. 15

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Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.

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