Kokoschka seeks to express through his colors the inner sensibility of the observer viewing a scene.

This aim is exemplified in one of his earliest paintings, Dent du Midi (1909), a snowscape in which the colors are warm, reflecting the response of the observer to the scene, rather than cool, evoking the actual light that must have emanated from the snow.

Egon Schiele, as a student at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts (1907­09), has been strongly influenced by the Jugendstil movement, the German Art Nouveau.

He meets Klimt, leader of the Vienna Sezession group, and the linearity and subtlety of Schiele's work owe much to Klimt's decorative elegance.

Schiele, however, emphasizes expression over decoration, heightening the emotive power of line with a feverish tension.

He concentrates from the beginning on the human figure, and his candid, agitated treatment of erotic themes causes a sensation.

In 1909, the 19-year-old Schiele helps found the Neukunstgruppe (New Art Group) in Vienna.