It never occurred to me that Christianity has a tradition of religious hermits as you mention near the end of the video. The minute you said that, I was reminded of Buddhist hermits and recluses, which were common in India, China, Korea and Japan in olden times in which they'd travel the countryside begging for scraps and food from people they met and lived as simply as possible in order to sever all ties with material possessions. I'm not certain how familiar or how much exposure Schiele had to Eastern religions, particularly Buddhism, but there's a definite similarity to me.
This piece is something else! 😅 The figure on the left is definitely Shiele himself - the resemblance is uncanny. But that other figure... Let's just say I found that zoom in around 1:45 a bit unnerving, lol. I wonder why the.. skeletal appearance. Maybe it's a reference to himself and he's resurrecting? Perhaps that's why the figures appear so linked ane there's a Byzantine-style ground harkening to religious paintings... Resurrected but still reclusive. That part of him hasn't changed. Who knows? It's fun to speculate. 🙃
