Mödling II

Mödling II of 1918 is among the last townscape works Schiele produced before his death from Spanish flu in October of that year. Mödling is a historic town immediately south of Vienna that had long been associated with Beethoven, who composed there, and with the Viennese artistic community that used it as a retreat. Schiele's choice of Mödling as a late subject may reflect its proximity to Vienna, where he was now based, as well as its associations with the cultural tradition he felt himself part of. By 1918, Schiele's townscapes had evolved from the compressed, psychologically oppressive Dead City works of 1911–1912 toward a slightly more open compositional approach. The town is still seen from above, still fills the picture plane, but there is a greater spatial airiness in the handling, perhaps reflecting the maturation of his formal vocabulary and the greater stability of his personal life after marriage. The Vienna Museum's collection of Schiele's late work captures this evolution in his final year.

The canvas shows Schiele's late townscape technique with its characteristic aerial perspective and flat colour blocking. Individual buildings are distinguished by palette variation — ochre against rust against dusty green — within an overall tonal unity that holds the composition together.