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Alexej Jawlensky (1864-1941)
Alexej Jawlensky was born
on March 13, 1864, in the Tver province of Torzhok, Russia. Along with Kandinsky and others, Jawlensky was one
of the pioneers of nonrepresentational art, working against
the institutions to establish a progressively spiritual brand
of abstraction.
Before pursuing art, Jawlensky enlisted in the military and
became an officer in 1887. While stationed at St. Petersburg,
he studied at the Academy of Art; after realizing that his
passion was in painting, he left the military to attend the
Azbe School in Munich, taking frequent study trips to Provence
and Brittany. In 1905 the artist was included in the Salon
d'Automne in Paris, where he met Henri Matisse whom he was
greatly influenced by. During this time, the artist concentrated
on form, paring it down to the schematic and leaving it greatly
simplified.
When Jawlensky met Wassily Kandinsky, the two artists combined
forces and founded the Neue Kunstlervereinigung Munchen, an
association of artists assembled to organize exhibitions in
the expressionist and fauvist style. A series of semi-abstract
landscapes and what he titled Mystic Heads trace the growth
of abstraction in Jawlensky's work; his painting With Yellow
Dot, executed in 1918, testifies to the artist's perception
of color as pure sound.
At the outbreak of the First World War, Jawlensky was forced
to leave Germany, fleeing to Switzerland to reside until 1921.
Jawlensky and Kandinsky resigned from the Neue Kunstlervereinigung
Munchen in 1924 in order to found Die Blaue Vier; other artists
involved included Paul Klee and Lyonel Feininger. Jawlensky
moved into a more expressive style at this point, employing
vibrant colors paired with dark, heavy outlines.
Although he was not an official member of Kandinsky's group,
Der Blaue Reiter, Jawlensky was sympathetic to their efforts
and strongly influenced by their ideas on abstraction. At
this time, the artist began to intensify the simplification
of form and employ an evocative palette.
Despite ill health, Alexei Jawlensky continued to develop
his style of painting up until his death on the fifteenth
of March, 1941 in Wiesbaden, Germany. Continuing to intensify
expression and to employ geometry to the facial features of
his subjects, Jawlensky converted the human face into a symbol
of expression, succeeding in developing a brand of abstraction
that was suggestive, inviting the viewer to meditate on the
image.
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