Tragic mood

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Tragic mood (Marianne von Werefkin)
Tragic mood
Marianne von Werefkin , 1909
Tempera on cardboard
46.8 x 58.2 cm
Fondazione Marianne Werefkin , Ascona

Tragic mood is the title of a painting that the Russian artist Marianne von Werefkin painted in 1909 in the Bavarian Alpine foothills . The work belongs to the holdings of the Fondazione Marianne Werefkin in Ascona . The painting was acquired by the Lenzburg doctor Hans Müller (1897–1989) from the Thannhauser gallery . He chose the picture as a donation for the Fondazione Marianne Werefkin. There it has the inventory number FMW-0-0-21.

Technology and dimensions

It is a tempera painting on cardboard , 46.8 × 58.2 cm.

iconography

From Werefkin and Jawlensky one learns almost nothing about the Murnau period through written certificates. But some of her pictures have a recognizable autobiographical character. As far as the relationship between Werefkin and Jawlensky is concerned, the painting “Tragic Mood” speaks a very clear language if you have a closer look at the life stories of the two artists and if you look carefully.

In the foreground, on this side of the path, stands a self-contained faceless woman, a maid, with her bare arms folded. In reality it is an ironic self-portrait of the Werefkin. This is made clear by her lament : “I have become a whore and a kitchen maid, a nurse and a governess , just to serve great art, a talent [Jawlensky] that I thought was worthy of realizing the new work [... ] And next to me, the unwavering, malicious and contradicting voice of reason says that this is madness. ”In the background on the other side of the path, in front of a morbid building, stands a man in tails , an outfit that Werefkin Jawlensky used on various occasions.

A finely dressed gentleman and a maid in work clothes form in and of themselves a pictorial discord as iconography. This conforms to Werefkin's color decision for the two colors red and blue, which create an almost unbearable dissonance in harmony with the content of the picture. Black clouds over a purple sky do the rest to justify the image's title. It is a “dissonant” painting in “dirty” colors, whose special value Kandinsky was only to recognize in 1911: “Red [...] is like a uniformly glowing passion [...] which can be erased by blue, like red-hot iron through water, ”he wrote.

Lasker student in her beloved oriental costume as "Prince Yussuf" (1912)

The conflict situation illustrated by the picture “Tragic Mood” increased towards the end of 1909. Werefkin drew the necessary conclusions from this and traveled alone to Lithuania to see her brother Peter, who was governor in Kownow . She stayed there until Easter 1910. With the painting “ Into the Night ”, which Werefkin painted there, she describes her lamentable situation with Jawlensky - albeit encrypted - one more time. Recognizing the problem of the relationship between Werefkin and Jawlensky, Else Lasker-Schüler described with poetic words: "Marianne's soul and her irrepressible heart like to play together joy and sorrow."

literature

  • Clemens Weiler : Marianne von Werefkin. Marianne Werefkin 1860-1938. Municipal Museum Wiesbaden 1958, no p.
  • Bernd Fäthke: Marianne Werefkin and her influence on the Blue Rider. In: exhib. Cat .: Marianne Werefkin, paintings and sketches. Museum Wiesbaden 1980, cat. No. 35, p. 82 with b / w illus.
  • Bernd Fäthke: Marianne Werefkin. Munich 2001, ISBN 3-7774-9040-7 , color. Fig. No. 170, p. 147, ISBN 3-7774-9040-7
  • Bernd Fäthke : Marianne Werefkin: Clemens Weiler's Legacy. In: Marianne Werefkin and the Women Artists in her Circle. (Tanja Malycheva and Isabel Wünsche eds.), Leiden / Boston 2016 (English), pp. 8–19, ISBN 978-9-0043-2897-6 , pp. 8–19, here pp. 14–19; JSTOR 10.1163 / j.ctt1w8h0q1.7

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Bernd Fäthke: Werefkin and Jawlensky with their son Andreas in the “Murnauer Zeit” in exhib. Cat .: 1908-2008, 100 years ago, Kandinsky, Münter, Jawlensky, Werefkin in Murnau. Murnau Castle Museum 2008, p. 37 ff
  2. ↑ Bernd Fäthke: Marianne Werefkin. Munich 2001, p. 138, ISBN 3-7774-9040-7
  3. ↑ Bernd Fäthke: Marianne von Werefkin, From colors, forms and lines. In exh. Cat .: Marianne von Werefkin in Murnau, art and theory, role models and artist friends. Murnau 2002, p. 28, cat.no.55, color illus. P. 91
  4. ↑ Wassily Kandinsky: About the spiritual in art, especially in painting. Munich 1912, (2nd edition), p. (The first edition was published by Piper in Munich at the end of 1911 with imprint 1912), p. 83 f.
  5. ↑ Else Lasker-Schüler. Marianne von Werefkin, Complete Poems. Munich 1966, p. 224