ALEXEJ VON JAWLENSKY (1864 1941)

ALEXEJ VON JAWLENSKY (1864 1941)
S/T The Russian painter Alexej von Jawlensky (1864-1941) was trained at the Academies of St. Petersburg and Munich where he met Kandinsky and became one of the main promoters of expressionist art. In 1905 he exhibited with the "fauves" painters at the Paris Autumn Salon, and years later, in 1921, he created, together with Wassily Kandinsky, Lyonel Feininger and Paul Klee, the group "Die Blaue Vier" (The Blue Four). His painting, rooted in Russian folklore and mysticism, reflects the influence of Van Gogh, Cézanne, the Nabis and, above all, Matisse.
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Von Jawlensky's subject matter focused mainly on portraiture, landscapes and still lifes. All of them have as a common characteristic the subordination of the motif to colour, giving it a flat appearance and renouncing the use of shadows and outlines in favour of a composition that in its extreme case is limited to the juxtaposition of bands of primary and complementary colours._x000D_
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In the early 1910s, he became interested in depicting faces under the impact of Russian icons on his youth. Like almost all expressionist artists, Jawlensky was more interested in depicting human types than in capturing a particular physical resemblance, more typical of the traditional portrait. On the other hand, his treatment of the human figure varied over time and his initial expressionism would evolve towards increasingly simplified forms, which would lead to a type of almost abstract portraits, painted with just a few geometric planes of colour._x000D_
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Towards the end of the First World War (1918), Von Jawlensky began to draw 'mystical heads' or 'faces of saints', creating his own version of the modern icon by combining fauvist and expressionist notes with the tradition and spirituality of Russian art. He gave them poetic titles such as "Moonlight" or "Inner Look" and, like Claude Monet, worked in series concentrating on a single theme. His appearance remained more or less constant but he varied the use of the brush, the colors and the drawing, in order to include new aspects of a transcendent spirituality that had been unknown until then. Unlike Wassily Kandinsky, he never moved towards pure abstraction and always based his forms on nature._x000D
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The work that concerns us, from the series of "mystic heads", presents an asexual face slightly in profile with its forms and features delineated with strong lines that show the interest in transmitting maximum expressiveness. The influence of the icons is evident here both in the use of strident colours and in the formal simplification, which also reminds us of medieval representations. The artist himself acknowledged this debt: "My Russian soul was always close to ancient Russian art, to icons, to Byzantine art, to the mosaics of Ravenna, Venice and Rome and to Romanesque art. All these artistic forms caused a deep vibration in my soul, because I felt in them the true spiritual language".
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Signed "A.J." in the lower left corner Gouache on paper 18 x 18.5 cm Automatically translated by DeepL. To see the original version, click here.