Egon Schiele and the Art of Popular Illustration

Presenting a radically different picture of Egon Schieles work, this study documents (in one-to-one comparisons) the extent of the artists visual borrowings from the Viennese humoristic journal, Die Muskete. Claude Cernuschi analyzes each comparison on a case-by-case basis, primarily because the interpretation of cartoons and caricatures is highly contingent on their specific historical and cultural context. Although this connection has gone unnoticed in the literature, in retrospect, this correlation makes perfect sense. Not only was Schieles artistic production frequently compared to caricature (and derided for being grotesque), but Expressionism and caricature are natural allies. One may belong to high art and the other to popular culture, yet both presuppose similar assumptions and deploy a similar rhetorical position: namely, that the exaggeration of human physiognomy allows deeper psychological truths to emerge. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, visual culture, popular culture, and politics.