Before we look at #6 in this series of still life studies, let’s first take some time to wallow in the concept of “incompletion.” We’ve just encountered this concept in all of these five studies and, going back a few months, you recall, we looked at a series of drawings based on Gainsborough, also in the context of incompletion:
https://artamaze.wordpress.com/2019/09/07/markmaking-with-gainsborough/
Now, here’s a drawing by the Austrian artist Egon Schiele (1890-1918), a superb and prolific draftsman.
The shoulder and bodice are left incomplete. We can be sure that he left the drawing “incomplete” on purpose. He was part of the avant-garde, called Sezession, in Vienna at the turn of that century. This feeling of incompletion is central to the modern sensibility, which comes out of romanticism.
If you’re yawning at this point, I thank you, because it means that you GET modernism. No need to dissect its concepts.
So then, why bring this up? I bring it up because students inevitably admire incompletion in famous artist’s work, finding the incompletion energetic and engaging, but they dismiss their own work because, well, “it’s not finished.”
Why do you admire a quality in a famous drawing, but reject the same quality in your own drawing. Are you willing to look at this? Yes, you are.
Egon Schiele’s, Mädchenporträt (Hilde Ziegler), about 18” high. Dated 1918, the year he died in the influenza pandemic. Recently discovered, it sold at auction in Vienna’s im Kinsky, 2012, for $304,000.
https://artamaze.wordpress.com/2020/05/12/still-life-with-peaches-pear-and-cup-1/
https://artamaze.wordpress.com/2020/05/13/still-life-with-peaches-pear-and-cup-2/
https://artamaze.wordpress.com/2020/05/14/still-life-with-peaches-pear-and-cup-3/
https://artamaze.wordpress.com/2020/05/15/still-life-with-peaches-pear-and-cup-4/
https://artamaze.wordpress.com/2020/05/16/still-life-with-peaches-pear-and-cup-5/
All contents copyright (C) 2010 Katherine Hilden. All rights reserved.
http://www.katherinehilden.com
artamaze by Katherine Hilden 
Like your insights.
Good, thank you. Keep drawing!!