Levitation (The Blind II)

Levitation (The Blind II) of 1915 is among Schiele's most overtly mystical figurative works, engaging themes of blindness, spiritual transcendence, and the dissolution of bodily gravity. The double title — Levitation and The Blind II — links two seemingly opposite states: the upward physical release of levitation and the inward, darkness-oriented state of blindness. In Schiele's symbolic vocabulary, blindness often signified a turning away from the visible world toward interior vision — the Expressionist's preferred mode of seeing. The year 1915 was one of decisive personal change for Schiele: he married Edith Harms in February and was conscripted into the Austro-Hungarian army shortly thereafter. Military service gave him access to Russian prisoners of war as subjects and exposed him to organised violence and mortality on a scale that left traces in the existential seriousness of his work. The Leopold Museum's holdings of Schiele's 1915 canvases document this transitional year between the psychological radicalism of 1911–1912 and the more considered maturity of 1917–1918.

The large oil on canvas composition uses strong diagonal rhythms to convey the upward motion of levitation. Schiele's handling in 1915 shows greater spatial ambition than the compressed early works — figures occupy a defined atmospheric space rather than a featureless ground.