Alexej von Jawlensky Quotes

Every artist works within a tradition. I am a native of Russia. My Russian soul has always been close to the art of old Russia, the Russian icons, Byzantine art, the mosaics in Ravenna, Venice, Rome, and to Romanesque art. All these artworks produced a religious vibration in my soul, as I sensed in them a deep spiritual language. This art was my tradition.

His pictures [of Nolde, which Jawlensky met in 1912] remind me of my own in the strength of their expression. I have a passionate love for Nolde and his art.

My friends, the apples that I love for their delightful red, yellow, mauve and green clothing cease to be apples for me when I see them against this or that background, in such or such surroundings.. .And they resound in my sight like a music, reproducing this or that mood of my soul, this or that fleeting contact with the soul of things.. .To reproduce the things which exist without being, to reveal them to other people, by passing them through my sympathetic understanding, by revealing them in the passion I feel for hem, that is the goal of my artistic existence. To me apples, trees, human faces are not more than hints as to what else I should seen in them: the life of colour, comprehended by a passionate lover.

..human faces are for me only suggestions to see something else in them – the life of colour, seized with a lover's passion.

We had a very lovely place [in Ascona with his life-companion Marianne Werefkin ] with a garden directly on the lake. It was on the edge of Ascona. Next to it began the Campagna [landscape], and this Campagna was enchantingly beautiful, like a dream.

This Spring of 1911 Marianne von Werefkin [his former study-mate in Russia and in fact his life-comapnion for many years, but never married] Andrei, Helene and I went to Prerow on the Baltic [coast]. For me that summer meant a great step forward in my art. I painted my finest landscapes there as well as large figure paintings in powerful, glowing colours and not at all naturalistic or objective. I used a great deal of red, blue, orange, cadmium yellow and chromium-oxide green. My forms were very strongly contoured in Prussian blue, and came with tremendous power from an inner ecstasy. 'Der Buckel', 'Violetter Turban', 'Selbstporträt'.. ..were created in this way. It was a turning-point in my art. It was in these years, up to 1914, just before the war [World War 1.], that I painted my most powerful works, referred to as the pré-war works.

Perhaps you have heard that Baroness Werefkin died in February. It was a great blow to me. Yes, indeed, sooner or later we have to pay for our mistakes once made. And often so severely.

When we had been in Ashenstovo [1873, located near the Prussian border]] a few days my mother took us children to see a famous Polish church, Kostjol, famous for its miraculous Madonna icon. This icon had three precious coats, one of gold, one of coral and one with pearls and diamonds.. .Many peasant men and women were were lying prostrate on the floor as if crucified, with their arms outstretched. It was very quiet. Suddenly a great blare of trumpets shattered the silence. Terribly frightened I saw the gold curtain open and the Madonna appear wearing a gold robe.

From then on I used to go to the Tretyakov Gallery [in Moscow] every Sunday, arriving very early and staying there without eating until closing time at three o'clock. It was a tremendous experience for me, like going to church. Indeed, I felt as if I were in a temple.

I knew that I must paint not what I saw, but only what was in me, in my soul. Figuratively speaking, it was like this: In my heart I felt as if there were an organ, which I had to sound. And nature, which I saw before me, only prompted me. And that was a key that unlocked this organ and made it sound.. .They are songs without words.

This acquaintance [with Marianne Werefkin ] would change my life. I became a friend of hers, of this clever woman gifted with genius.

At first I intended to carry on working in Saint-Prex [in Switzerland, circa 1914 – 1915] in the same way I had been working in Munich [the location of his Blaue Reiter / Blue Rider period]. But something inside me prevented me from painting colourful, sensuous pictures. Suffering had changed my soul, telling me to find other forms and colours to express what was on my mind.

I now began to search for a new path in art [from 1914, with the outbreak of World War 1.]. It was a major task. I understood that I did not have to paint what I saw, not even what I felt, but only that which lived within me, in my soul. To put it in symbolic terms, it is like this: I felt within myself, within my breast, the keyboard of an organ and I had to make it resonate. And the nature that was in front of me served me only as a prompter. And that was a key that unlocked this organ and made it resonate. In the beginning it was very difficult. But little by little, it became easy for me to use colours and forms to find what was within my soul.

I was taken to see the World Exhibition in Moscow [in 1880]. I found it all very boring. But when I came to a section devoted to art – there were only paintings, and this was the first time of my life [Jawlensky was 16 years old] I had seen paintings – I was so deeply affected that it was a case of Saul becoming Paul. It was the turning point of my life. Even since then art has been my ideal, my holy of holiest, that for which my entire soul and my entire self yearn.

My art in the last period has all been in small format, but my paintings have become even deeper and more spiritual, speaking purely through colour.. .And now I leave these small – but to me – important works to the future and to the people who love art.