Decaying Mill

The Centennial Birthday of State Collections

The Centennial Birthday of State Collections

The Centennial Birthday of State Collections

Egon Schiele hated the war. His diary entries from 1916 tell the story of an artist reluctantly performing his duties at the POW camp Mühling. Schiele’s vision of the “United States of Europe” encapsulates how strongly he longed for a future of community and collaboration. He spent every spare minute outdoors, drawing, painting, and jotting down notes. The “Decaying Mill” is the central main work from this period and, at the same time, one of the most beautiful pictures in Schiele’s oeuvre. He himself called this work, which shows an old, derelict mountain mill, his “perhaps most beautiful landscape.” Today the painting that was begun on June 1, 1916, and was once owned by movie-directing legend Fritz Lang is the most valuable moveable object the state of Lower Austria owns.

Egon Schiele, Decaying Mill, 1916
© State of Lower Austria, Lower Austrian State Collections
Photo: Peter Böttcher

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