Jawlensky Alexei

Variation 38,8x28,6 cm, oil on canvas, cardboard, 1918-1919

Yavlensky Alexey Georgievich (1864-1941) – Russian painter, representative of expressionism. After high school, he studied at the cadet corps and military school (1877-1887); in 1896, retired with the rank of staff captain. Since 1890 he attended the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts as a volunteer, studied with A.I. Kuindzhi and I.E. Repin. Besides classes at the Academy, A. Yavlensky spent a lot of time at the Hermitage and various art galleries. Disappointed in the academic system of teaching, he studied in 1893 in the workshop of M.V. Verevkina, who later became his wife. In 189b, Mr .. settled down with her in Munich, where he attended the school of A. Ashbe, where then I.E. Grabar and D.N. Kardovsky. Here his friendship with V.V. Kandinsky. By the time he met A. Matisse in 1905, the artist had a serious reappraisal of aesthetic views from the Germans F. Lenbach and F. Stuck to V. Van Gogh, P. Cezanne, P. Gauguin. The main thing that interests A. Yavlensky in this period is “the life of color,” for he sees the art of the future as emotional art. Episodic, in fact, is the participation of A. Yavlensky in 1906 in the St. Petersburg exhibition “The World of Art” together with M .V. Dobuzhinsky, VA Serov, KA Somov at the invitation of SP Diaghilev, but soon there was a very important meeting with the artist E. Vercade, a former friend of P. Gauguin, who later became a monk of the monastery in Beiron. with V. Kandinsky he was the organizer of the New Blue Art Society of Munich nickname “, and in 1912-13 it became part of it.

Artist A.G. Yavlensky, a descendant of the Counts of the Rostopchins, left Russia completely in 1914, in connection with the outbreak of the First World War, and all his subsequent creative life passed in Germany; therefore, von Yavlensky went down in the history of art of two countries.

The genre in which he worked the most and which, apparently, corresponded to his creative throwings and deep thoughts, is a portrait. Beautiful faces, sometimes bright, “icon-painted”, then emerging from the darkness of the background, live in the works of the author. From 1914 to 1921 he lived in San Pre (Switzerland) on Lake Geneva. The artist felt that he could no longer create monumental coloristic suites. His famous “variations” appear here: landscapes, still lifes.

Painting by A. Yavlensky “Variation” carries an extraordinary charge of energy, conveys the psychological state of man at the time of contemplation of nature. This composition embodied the view from the window of his small room-front garden, lake, mountains.

In 1921, the artist finally settled in Wiesbaden. Together with V. Kandinsky, P. Klee, and L. Feininger, A. Yavlensky created the Blue Four association in 1924, which did not last long. During this period, A. Yavlensky “constructs” the head, brightens the color, seeks to reduce the number of expressive means and to deepen their capabilities. The last decade of the artist’s life – the most important in his creative and spiritual path – is marked by dramatic events.

Later, the master’s work was increasingly hampered by a progressive disease of the joints of the hands. In addition, the Nazi authorities in Germany, struggling with the avant-garde in art, banned him from exhibiting. It is known that the artist worked in ecstasy, with tears in his eyes, created, turning his inner eyes to God. The artist’s German friends called him “Ivan Karamazov.”

In 1938, A. Yavlensky stopped painting. In 1937, 72 works of the author were confiscated by the Nazis as “degenerative art.” A. Yavlensky was buried in 1941 in Wiesbaden at the Russian Orthodox cemetery.

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