Video: Alexei von Jawlensky's Portrait of a Woman

Alexei von Jawlensky's piece, Portrait of a Woman, was inspired by the work of his contemporary Wassily Kandinsky. Learn about von Jawlensky's work with tips from an art historian in this free fine art video.

Video Transcript

Alexei von Jawlensky. And this is the portrait of a woman from 1909. He was a Russian origin painter, especially active in Germany. And he was working together with another Russian painter who lived in Germany as well, Wassily Kandinsky. And in a few years they made the, Jawlensky was also a painter from the group, so called the Der Blaue Reiter or The Blue Rider. And the name came from a painting of Kandinsky. And they had to go to express emotions and passion in colors. So they are not especially metered what they used, but the main characteristic for them is the flat areas, the forms are very simplified and the colors are very vibrant and pure. So that's the main characteristic what we can also see on that painting. In 1905 Alexei Jawlensky exhibited together with the Fauve in Paris. So, they had also the same goals. But especially the different colors and what they used as well. The sharp black outlines. And sometimes it explained by Jawlensky paintings, as a influence of the Russian icons and influence of Van Gogh the other expressionist painters before the German expressionist. Because Der Blaue Reiter was a part, a group from the German expressionist painters and it was rather theoretical background, what they wanted to make. The theory was made by Kandinsky. So get a pure theory behind the rough colors, and so some of them reached in this way doing it through the simplified forms, and near abstraction as well. So in Der Blaue Reiter, what is really special that they used art, a device to express emotions. Rather a surface for theory as well. But in that case what we have the Jawlensky portrait. It's rather the main characteristics, the compliment of colored areas and the lack of mixed colors and color patterns as well.

Alexei von Jawlensky's Portrait of a Woman

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