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Egon Schiele’s landscape paintings from the early years of the First World War were innovative and exciting; his figurative work, which was even more radical, I find more of a challenge. Many of those works from 1915 centre on his personal relationships.

It appears that, when he married Edith Harms, Schiele had expected to maintain his relationship with Wally (Walburga Neuzil), with whom he had lived for four years. When he tried to explain this to Wally, she – perhaps not unsurprisingly – abandoned him immediately, and they apparently never met again.

Egon Schiele (1890–1918), Death and the Maiden (1915), oil on canvas, 150 x 180 cm, Österreichische Galerie Belvedere, Vienna, Austria. Wikimedia Commons.

Schiele expressed this in his major painting of Death and the Maiden (1915), which was exhibited the following year in Berlin. The young woman is based on his earlier paintings of Wally, and the man is…

Aubrey is an English unisex name, the Norman French form of Germanic Alberich meaning “elf power” made up from Germanic elements alf (elf) and ric (power). In Germanic mythology, Alberich is a dwarf and appears in the Nibelungenlied, an epic poem in which he guards the treasure of Nibelung. It’s also an English surname originating from the given name.

Origin: Proto-Indo-European

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Male forms:

• Aubry (English)
• Alberich (Ancient Germanic)
• Alberic (Ancient Germanic)
• Auberon (English)
• Alberico (Italian)
• Ælfric (Anglo-Saxon)
• Elric (Medieval English)

Female forms:

• Aubry (English)
• Aubree (English)
• Aubrie (English)

Although Koloman Moser (1868–1918) had withdrawn from the Wiener Werkstätte in 1907, he continued to undertake design work in his later years. This included design for stamps, and particularly of stage sets for productions in Vienna. But his focus remained on painting, in which he turned increasingly to figurative works.

Koloman Moser (1868–1918), Self-portrait (c 1914), oil on canvas, 75 x 75 cm, Private collection. Wikimedia Commons.

His Self-portrait from about 1914 is unusual, not for depicting him in the act of sketching a landscape, but for setting himself in the remains of a building which almost comes to dominate the image. His skin tones are now a light ochre, matching the stone walls.

Koloman Moser (1868–1918), Study for ‘Three Crouching Women’ (c 1914), pencil, Indian ink and pen and red pencil on canvas mounted on paper, 21 x 28.5 cm, Die Sammlung Leopold, Vienna, Austria. Wikimedia Commons.

This study…

Lara is a Russian female name, a shortened form of Larissa, the name of a city in Thessaly, Greece, that dates back to five thousand years ago (it’s also the name of a few other towns in the region). Apparently the city received its name from a nymph named Larissa, the daughter of Pelasgus (or the mother in some versions) and which means “stronghold”, “citadel”, or “fortress”. I’ve also seen other sites list it as being derived from  Ancient Greek larix meaning “larch (tree)”, laros, referring to a cormorant or a gull, or laros “sweet, pleasing to the taste”, but I can’t say how accurate any of them are.

Lara could also be a short form of Larunda, also a nymph in Roman mythology (also associated with Muta and Tacita). She was a great talker and couldn’t keep secrets to herself and revealed to Juno that her…