Lot Essay
This portrait, painted circa 1912, perfectly illustrates how closely one can compare German Expressionism to French Fauvism. Jawlensky first exhibited his work alongside the Fauves at the Salon d'Automne in 1905. Later his work was exhibited with the newly created Neuen München Künstlervereinigung in 1910 under Kandinsky's presidency, a group which included the work of Derain, van Dongen, Vlaminck and Rouault.
Aside from the Fauves it is possible to trace a number of other influences on Jawlensky's style from outside the Brücke circle: "From Cézanne he absorbed the schematic rendering of form, and from van Gogh the use of high key colour laid on a rhythmic pattern of thick stubby brush strokes...Jawlensky's brilliant series of women's heads painted between the years 1910 and 1913 - his first great plateau of human achievement - cannot be easily placed as an integral part of this (German Expressionist) tradition despite its high key colour and nervous resonances. Jawlensky's heads are too sensuous and lyrical, they completely lack a sense of anguished morbidity which is fundamental to the style of Die Brücke". (S. Hopps and J. Coplans, exh. cat., Jawlensky and the Serial Image, University of California Art Gallery at Irvine, March 1976, pp. 8, 11).
That Jawlensky himself considered these figurative pictures amongst the most important in his oeuvre becomes clear in his memoirs. Jawlensky wrote how the year 1911 "meant a great step forward in my art. I painted my finest landscapes...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 coloured in Prussian blue and came with tremendous power from an inner ecstasy...It was a turning point in my art. It was in these years, up to 1914 just before the war, that I painted my most powerful works, referred to as the 'pre-war works'". (A. Jawlensky, "Memoir dictated to Lisa Kummel, 1937", in Alexej von Jawlensky, Catalogue raisonné of the Oil Paintings, London, 1991, p. 31).
In Spanierin mit rotem Schal the blazing yellow of the woman's face stands out against the orange-red of her shawl and the areas of bright colour become yet more intense when enclosed in heavy black outlines. In all his portraits from this time, Jawlensky simplified and stylised the facial form and counter-balanced this by means of more intense colouring. By 1912 and 1913, his portrait compositions were becoming more elongated and his colours slightly more restrained. In Spanierin mit rotem Schal the colouring is based on the great contrast between blue of the background, the yellow face of the woman and the red of her shawl. Her features are strikingly simple: her long, oval face is divided by the central axis of the nose, with wide-open eyes and pursed lips.
Jawlensky painted a series of portraits of Spanish women, in bold exotic colours including Spanierin mit schwarzem Schal (cat. rais., no. 574) housed in the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus in Munich; and the striking Spanierin mit blauem Schal (cat. rais., no. 614), sadly now lost but once part of the prestigious Ida Bienert collection in Dresden. Among the large number of female portraits Jawlensky executed at this time, many were of Spanish and Asian women and the bright colours favoured by the artist suited the flamboyant subject-matter admirably.
Aside from the Fauves it is possible to trace a number of other influences on Jawlensky's style from outside the Brücke circle: "From Cézanne he absorbed the schematic rendering of form, and from van Gogh the use of high key colour laid on a rhythmic pattern of thick stubby brush strokes...Jawlensky's brilliant series of women's heads painted between the years 1910 and 1913 - his first great plateau of human achievement - cannot be easily placed as an integral part of this (German Expressionist) tradition despite its high key colour and nervous resonances. Jawlensky's heads are too sensuous and lyrical, they completely lack a sense of anguished morbidity which is fundamental to the style of Die Brücke". (S. Hopps and J. Coplans, exh. cat., Jawlensky and the Serial Image, University of California Art Gallery at Irvine, March 1976, pp. 8, 11).
That Jawlensky himself considered these figurative pictures amongst the most important in his oeuvre becomes clear in his memoirs. Jawlensky wrote how the year 1911 "meant a great step forward in my art. I painted my finest landscapes...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 coloured in Prussian blue and came with tremendous power from an inner ecstasy...It was a turning point in my art. It was in these years, up to 1914 just before the war, that I painted my most powerful works, referred to as the 'pre-war works'". (A. Jawlensky, "Memoir dictated to Lisa Kummel, 1937", in Alexej von Jawlensky, Catalogue raisonné of the Oil Paintings, London, 1991, p. 31).
In Spanierin mit rotem Schal the blazing yellow of the woman's face stands out against the orange-red of her shawl and the areas of bright colour become yet more intense when enclosed in heavy black outlines. In all his portraits from this time, Jawlensky simplified and stylised the facial form and counter-balanced this by means of more intense colouring. By 1912 and 1913, his portrait compositions were becoming more elongated and his colours slightly more restrained. In Spanierin mit rotem Schal the colouring is based on the great contrast between blue of the background, the yellow face of the woman and the red of her shawl. Her features are strikingly simple: her long, oval face is divided by the central axis of the nose, with wide-open eyes and pursed lips.
Jawlensky painted a series of portraits of Spanish women, in bold exotic colours including Spanierin mit schwarzem Schal (cat. rais., no. 574) housed in the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus in Munich; and the striking Spanierin mit blauem Schal (cat. rais., no. 614), sadly now lost but once part of the prestigious Ida Bienert collection in Dresden. Among the large number of female portraits Jawlensky executed at this time, many were of Spanish and Asian women and the bright colours favoured by the artist suited the flamboyant subject-matter admirably.