Art Historians keep talking about how he depicts his models as emaciated, but IMO, I don’t think that was really a decision by Schiele. Poor people - the kind of people who would allow artists to sketch them in the nude - were emaciated. This was before antibiotics, so tuberculosis was rampant and no one checked if unscrupulous grocers and millers added arsenic to flour (and other food) to keep weevils out. Malnutrition also stunts childrens’ growth and delays puberty. So when we talk about the age of consent in historical context, an underage child appeared much more childlike than well-fed children from our era.
Yep - his stuff gives me the heebie-jeebies - whether the model is a scrawny girl or himself.
