Self-Portrait, 1912 (Jawlensky)

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Alexej Jawlensky: Self-Portrait, 1912

Self-portrait is the title of a painting by the German-Russian artist Alexej Jawlensky , which he painted in 1912. In 1973, Ulrich Schmidt , the museum director at the time, acquired it for the Wiesbaden Museum with considerable resistance . It bears the inventory number M 898 and is on permanent loan from the state capital Wiesbaden.

Technology and image carriers

The “self-portrait” is an oil painting on cardboard in portrait format, “53.5 x 48.5 cm”. It is signed and dated in the upper right of the picture 'A. Jawlensky 12 ". “On the reverse a self-portrait painted over with blue paint, inscribed (by a hand other than that with a white brush): Self-portrait / 1912 / A. Jawlensky, inscribed lower left (with white brush: N. 18.) “The picture is recorded in Weiler's“ Catalog of Paintings ”from 1959, in Weiler's“ Workshop Directory ”from 1970, and in“ Catalog Raisonné ”from 1991 by Jawlensky Archives.

Image description

“In 1912 Jawlensky further developed what he had started in Prerow . Now most of those strong and mighty minds arose who bear testimony to the elementary emotional world in which he lived. [...] The "self-portrait" [...] thrown down with furious brush strokes is one of the most grandiose creations of Expressionism . Everything is controlled power. The whole brutality of an eastern world seems to be paired with western reason. A truly stately picture. Else Lasker-Schüler , who knew how to give her friends such apt names, called Jawlensky the "protector of Russia". You can understand this name in front of that picture. "

“What defines the uniqueness of his self-portrait from 1912 is the clarity and consistency of his use of purely expressionistic means, namely the colors and shapes, with no attributes and accessories. In his self-portrait, Jawlensky shows himself, without the viewer being distracted from his personality by trivialities, as a man who has experienced, worked, suffered and thought a lot in his life. But his fate has also made him stable, secure and confident. Every viewer feels this when looking at the picture and looks for an explanation of his impression. On closer inspection he then discovers that Jawlensky has built his self-portrait from very simple forms logically and consistently, according to the requirements of an architecture or a monument, which give it strength and stability. The red shoulder areas appear like a foundation, giving the second element in the composition, the ruff, the function of a base. This certainly bears the oval of the head and in no way gives the impression of an instability of the form or the depicted personality. "

Studies on "self-portrait"

The Wiesbaden Museum owns two pencil sketches for Jawlensky's painting “Self-Portrait”, inventory number: Z 351 and Z 434i. The former shows the architectural structure of the later painting quite precisely. The shoulders as a foundation and the ruff as a base, which ultimately supports the head, are already laid out in the drawing. It was acquired in 1960 by the then museum director Clemens Weiler . The second drawing outlines the head of the portrait very summarily. What both have in common, however, is that they are looking to the left, while Jawlensky in the painting looks the other way. The sheet is inscribed lower left: “A. v Jawlensky “. Underneath it "in block letters in pencil by a hand other than that, erased but still legible: SELF-PORTRAIT." At the bottom right there is also a date "by another hand" [...] "1912". “The authenticity of the drawing itself cannot be doubted. […] The comparison between the drawing and the painting shows that Jawlensky decided to make changes to the drawing in the final version. It is not only clear that he chose a different viewing angle in order to be able to present himself better, but he has also consolidated the formal structure. "

Japanese influences

One of Jawlensky's outstanding paintings in 1912 is undoubtedly his “self-portrait”, a brilliant staging of himself that is inconceivable without Japanese models. “The 'self-portrait' has a strange effect on many viewers. It is the look out of the eyes, rimmed with a broad brush in darker colors, that reminds one of the foreign when looking at Jawlensky's Expressionist portraits. The unusual, exotic-looking color application on the face also contributes to this. In this respect, reference is often made to a degree of excess that is typically blamed on the Russians, something Jawlensky was annoyed about in his early years in Munich - and against which he resisted. ”A look at the remaining sheets of Jawlensky's Japan collection, especially the actor's portrait of Toyohara Kunichika , on the other hand, makes it clear that a source of his artistic inspiration can also be seen in Japanese art . This is especially true as Kunichika is a specialist in Okubi-e images, "large head representations". He decorated the face of his stage performer with a thick and mask-like make-up technique, kumadori, used in kabuki theater . The Sujiguma , the red lines on the actor's face, symbolize "righteousness, strength of will and passion, while the blue drawing [...] has a negative connotation".

Both artists, Kunichika and Jawlensky, aimed to depict the essence of a human being and for this they also used the three basic colors - yellow, red and blue - which they brought into balance with the complementary colors - violet, green and orange. Despite all the kinship in implementing their concern, Jawlensky went far beyond his Japanese colleagues. Kunichika still needed attributes - sword and warrior garb - to be able to recognize his actor as a fearless war hero. Jawlensky, on the other hand, did without the usual painter's accessories, brushes and palettes. For him, the use of purely artistic means - namely form and color - was enough to arrive at the same result - here the representation of a self-confident, successful painter.

When Jawlensky got to know the Japanese woodcuts and drew from them in order to renew his own work, the openness to Japanese art was already a tradition in Western art history. Like no other European painter before him, he transformed himself into the Japanese mastery of grasping characters and putting states of mind into the picture as his trademark. Not only the expressionist work of the "head painter" Jawlensky is influenced by this, but extends from the series of his "Variations", "Mystical Heads", "Savior Faces", "Abstract Heads" and "Christ Heads" to the "Meditations" of his late work.

literature

  • Maria Jawlensky, Lucia Pieroni-Jawlensky, Angelica Jawlensky (eds.): Alexej von Jawlensky, Catalog Raisonné of the oil-paintings . Vol. 1, Munich 1991, p. 367 f. No. 477.
  • Clemens Weiler: Alexej Jawlensky Cologne 1959, p. 236 no.132.
  • Clemens Weiler: Alexej Jawlensky, heads-faces-meditations . Hanau 1970, p. 142 No. 95.
  • Exhibition catalog: Jawlensky's Japanese woodcut collection. A fairytale discovery . Edition of the Administration of State Palaces and Gardens. Bad Homburg vdH, No. 2, 1992
  • Ingrid Koszinowski: Alexej von Jawlensky, paintings and graphic works from the collection of the Wiesbaden Museum . Wiesbaden 1997, p. 17
  • Bernd Fäthke : Von Werefkins and Jawlensky's weakness for Japanese art . In: Exhibition catalog: "... the tender, spirited fantasies ...", The painters of the "Blue Rider" and Japan . Murnau Castle Museum 2011, p. 124 f.
  • Ingrid Koszinowski, Alexej von Jawlensky - paintings and graphic works from the collection of the Museum Wiesbaden , Spangenberg 1997, painting no.15.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ ma: Jawlenski portrait temporarily submerged, seller and broker still in the dark . Wiesbadener Tagblatt, February 24, 1973; eg: Jawlensky or Ampel, Advisory Board Rambach wants to see the 300,000 DM used differently . Wiesbaden Courier, February 14, 1973; Bruno Russ: Jawlensky or Ampel - that is not the question of why the city of Wiesbaden should approve the purchase . Wiesbaden Courier, March 2, 1973
  2. ^ Ingrid Koszinowski: Alexej von Jawlensky, paintings and graphic works from the collection of the Wiesbaden Museum . Wiesbaden 1997, p. 27. However, it should be a "square format", claims Roman Zieglgänsberger in: Alexej Jawlensky . Cologne 2016, p. 5
  3. ^ Ingrid Koszinowski: Alexej von Jawlensky, paintings and graphic works from the collection of the Wiesbaden Museum. Wiesbaden 1997, p. 27
  4. ↑ Clemens Weiler: Alexej Jawlensky . Cologne 1959, p. 236, no.132
  5. ↑ Clemens Weiler: Alexej Jawlensky, Heads-Face-Meditations . Hanau 1970, p. 142, no.95
  6. ^ Maria Jawlensky, Lucia Pieroni-Jawlensky and Angelica Jawlensky (eds.): Alexej von Jawlensky, Catalog Raisonné of the oil-paintings . Vol. 1, Munich 1991, No. 477, p. 367 f, ill. P. 378
  7. ↑ Clemens Weiler: Alexej Jawlensky . Cologne 1959, p. 80
  8. ↑ Bernd Fäthke: Jawlensky's "Self-Portrait", the special picture for the 45th year of death of Alexej Jawlensky . MS Museum Wiesbaden, June 1986, p. 5
  9. ↑ Bernd Fäthke: Alexej Jawlensky, drawing-graphic documents . Exhibition catalog. Museum Wiesbaden 1983, panels 14 and 15
  10. ^ Ingrid Koszinowski: Alexej von Jawlensky, paintings and graphic works from the collection of the Wiesbaden Museum . Wiesbaden 1997, p. 61
  11. ^ Ingrid Koszinowski: Alexej von Jawlensky, paintings and graphic works from the collection of the Wiesbaden Museum . Wiesbaden 1997, p. 61
  12. ↑ Bernd Fäthke: Alexej Jawlensky, drawing-graphic documents . Exhibition catalog: Museum Wiesbaden 1983, p. 24
  13. ↑ Alexej Jawlensky, Memoirs . In: Clemens Weiler (Ed.): Alexej Jawlensky, Heads-Faces-Meditations . Hanau 1970, p. 108
  14. ↑ Bernd Fäthke: Jawlensky's role models (1880-1921) . In: Exhibition catalog: Jawlensky's Japanese woodcut collection. A fairytale discovery . Edition of the Administration of State Palaces and Gardens, Bad Homburg vdH, No. 2, 1992, p. 38 f.
  15. ↑ Ildikó small Bednay: Jawlensky Japanese woodcut collection . In the exhibition catalog: Jawlensky's Japanese woodcut collection. A fairytale discovery . Edition of the Administration of State Palaces and Gardens, Bad Homburg vdH, No. 2, 1992, p. 145, plate 72
  16. ↑ Bernd Fäthke: The hero from Kabuki theater - Alexei Jawlensky collected Japanese woodblock prints ... . WELTKUNST 06/2006, p. 16 ff.
  17. ↑ Friedrich B. Schwan: Handbook of Japanese Woodcut - Backgrounds, Techniques, Themes and Motifs . Munich 2003, p. 462
  18. ↑ Ildikó small Bednay: Jawlensky Japanese woodcut collection . In the exhibition catalog: Jawlensky's Japanese woodcut collection. A fairytale discovery . Edition of the Administration of State Palaces and Gardens, Bad Homburg vdH, No. 2, 1992, p. 145 f.
  19. ↑ Bernd Fäthke: The hero from the Kabuki theater - Alexej Jawlensky collected Japanese woodcuts ... , WELTKUNST 06/2006, p. 16 ff.
  20. ↑ Thomas Leims: Kabuki - text versus acting . In: Classical Theater Forms of Japan, Introductions to Noo, Bunraku and Kabuki . Ed. Japanese Cultural Institute Cologne, Cologne / Vienna 1983, p. 75
  21. ↑ Friedrich B. Schwan: Handbook of Japanese woodcut backgrounds, techniques, themes and motifs . Munich 2003, p. 443
  22. ↑ Bernd Fäthke: Jawlensky and his companions in a new light . Munich 2004, p. 181
  23. ↑ Bernd Fäthke: Von Werefkins and Jawlensky's weakness for Japanese art . In: Exhibition catalog: "... the tender, spirited fantasies ...". The painters of the “Blue Rider” and Japan . Murnau Castle Museum 2011, p. 124 f.