The Hermits, 1912 Egon Schiele (1890-1918)

We create our paintings with museum quality and covering the highest academic standards. Once we get your order, it will be entirely hand-painted with oil on canvas. All the materials we use are the highest level, being totally artist graded painting materials and linen canvas.

We will add 1.6" (4 cm) additional blank canvas all over the painting for stretching.

High quality and detailing in every inch are time consuming. The reproduction of Egon Schiele also needs time to dry in order to be completely ready for shipping, as this is crucial to not be damaged during transportation.
Based on the size, level of detail and complexity we need 7-8 weeks to complete the process.

In case the delivery date needs to be extended in time, or we are overloaded with requests, there will be an email sent to you sharing the new timelines of production and delivery.

TOPofART wants to remind you to keep patient, in order to get you the highest quality, being our mission to fulfill your expectations.

We not stretch and frame our oil paintings due to several reasons:
Painting reproduction is a high quality expensive product, which we cannot risk to damage by sending it being stretched.
Also, there are postal restrictions, regarding the size of the shipment.
Additionally, due to the dimensions of the stretched canvas, the shipment price may exceed the price of the product itself.

You can stretch and frame your painting in your local frame-shop.

Once the painting The Hermits is ready and dry, it will be shipped to your delivery address. The canvas will be rolled-up in a secure postal tube.

We offer free shipping as well as paid express transportation services.

After adding your artwork to the shopping cart, you will be able to check the delivery price using the Estimate Shipping and Tax tool.

The paintings we create are only of museum quality. Our academy graduated artists will never allow a compromise in the quality and detail of the ordered painting. TOPofART do not work, and will never allow ourselves to work with low quality studios from the Far East. We are based in Europe, and quality is our highest priority.

Egon Schiele’s "The Hermits" is a painting where discomfort and intimacy intertwine in a twisted dance of dark robes and pale, gaunt faces. Look closely, and you’ll see Schiele himself, entwined with a figure that is his mentor, Gustav Klimt. But this is no conventional portrait. The figures seem fused together, their bodies wrapped in heavy, black cloaks that swallow almost everything around them. They stand on a barren patch of earth, with only a sparse trace of vegetation at their feet - a single red flower, struggling for life.

The palette is muddy, earthy - browns and blacks dominate, giving the painting a bleak and oppressive atmosphere. The figures’ hands, long and skeletal, are highlighted in pale flesh tones, drawing your attention immediately to their ghostly grip. The faces are distorted, eyes hollow, expressions more suggestion than clarity. The stark contrast of the faces against the dark robes adds to the sense of isolation and fragility.

Schiele’s technique here is both meticulous and rough. The background, a blur of color, feels almost unfinished, like a memory fading at the edges. The figures, however, are tightly rendered, the creases of their robes almost painfully exact. There’s a tension in how he applies paint - the rough, angular strokes convey both the physical and emotional weight of the scene. It feels heavy, like gravity itself is pressing down on the figures.

Compositionally, it’s brilliant. The figures lean into each other, both physically and symbolically, creating an off-balance center that keeps your eyes moving across the painting. There’s no escaping the gravity of their embrace - an unsettling depiction of companionship that feels closer to death than life.