Four Trees

I think this might be the first Schiele landscape I have ever seen, and how different the mood from his figure paintings, so often depicting a frantic melange of eroticism and decay.

Yet, even here, the landscape is fragile. The momentary light of sunset will be gone in a moment or two, and the shadows descend. And what about that little tree, the second from the left? Will it recover to leaf again next season, or surrender to decay, spreading its illness to the trees at its side…

Four Trees by Egon Schiele