This report aimed to investigate the relationship between the ego of the artist and the female nude. Specifically exploring how the ego was projected in the selected works and what this projection inferred about the artist’s ego. There was an in-depth analysis of the works of four prominent Austrian painters from the 20th and 21st Centuries to evaluate this relationship. The artists evaluated in this report were Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, Maria Lassnig and Elke Krystufek. The report also aimed to evaluate whether the writer Rainer Metzger’s criteria that states how to identify the ego in 20th Century painting was accurate and relevant in the 21st Century Austrian art scene. It was concluded that the ego in painting could not be identified by a set of narrow criteria proposed by Metzger. The relationship between the artist’s ego and the female nude required a more nuanced approach specific to the context of the artist’s personal life. It was also found that the definitions of both the male and female ego need further expansion. The research surrounding the ego still held negative connotations when the report was written, and the female ego definition needed further research and development outside the report. The report would recommend further reading relating to the female ego which can be found in Amelia Jones’s Body Art and Dianne Elise’s Primary Femininity, Bisexuality and the Female Ego Ideal.
*Part of the 2022-2023 Fine Art cohort
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