1913, Alexej von Jawlensky, Pensive Woman -- Albertina (Vienna)
From the museum label: The painting Pensive Woman is dominated by expressive, unnatural and contrasting colors. Jawlenksy relied on strong black outlines for depicting his motif. He adopted this stylistic device from Paul Gauguin from 1908 on, but also harked back to Japanese woodcuts. The subject's large, black-rimmed eyes fixate the viewer. At the time when he painted Pensive Woman, Jawlensky lived in Munich with his companion Marianne von Werefkin. From 1907 on, the artist couple spent the summer months in the Upper Bavarian town of Murnau together with Wassily Kandinsky and Gabriele Münter. In 1909, the two couples were among the founding members of "Neue Künstlervereinigung München" (Munich New Artists' Association), from which the famous group of artists "Der Blaue Reiter" (The Blue Rider) split off. Its members strove for an abstract combination of pure colors and nonrepresentational forms. Their coloring, which is far removed from nature, resulted from the artists' direct engagement with Henri Matisse and French Fauvism.
1913, Alexej von Jawlensky, Pensive Woman -- Albertina (Vienna)
From the museum label: The painting Pensive Woman is dominated by expressive, unnatural and contrasting colors. Jawlenksy relied on strong black outlines for depicting his motif. He adopted this stylistic device from Paul Gauguin from 1908 on, but also harked back to Japanese woodcuts. The subject's large, black-rimmed eyes fixate the viewer. At the time when he painted Pensive Woman, Jawlensky lived in Munich with his companion Marianne von Werefkin. From 1907 on, the artist couple spent the summer months in the Upper Bavarian town of Murnau together with Wassily Kandinsky and Gabriele Münter. In 1909, the two couples were among the founding members of "Neue Künstlervereinigung München" (Munich New Artists' Association), from which the famous group of artists "Der Blaue Reiter" (The Blue Rider) split off. Its members strove for an abstract combination of pure colors and nonrepresentational forms. Their coloring, which is far removed from nature, resulted from the artists' direct engagement with Henri Matisse and French Fauvism.