15 - Alexej von Jawlensky

Alexej von Jawlensky Fabrik in Bergen 1912 Oil on artist's board. 49.1 x 53.4 cm. Framed. Signed 'A. Jawlensky' in blue lower right. - In very fine condition with fresh colours. M. Jawlensky/L. Pieroni-Jawlensky/A. Jawlensky 555 Provenance A. Gessner, Wiesbaden; Private collection, Wiesbaden; until 1992 on permanent loan to the Museum Wiesbaden; Lempertz Köln, Auktion 679, Moderne Kunst, 3 June 1992, lot 223; Private collection, Rhineland Exhibitions Munich 1964 (Lenbachhaus), Alexej von Jawlensky, cat. no. 72; Frankfurt/Hamburg 1967 (Kunstverein), Jawlensky, cat. no. 83 with ill.; Wiesbaden 1990/1991 (Museum Wiesbaden), Alexej von Jawlensky zum 50. Todestag, cat. no. 86 with colour ill. Literature Clemens Weiler, Alexej Jawlensky, Cologne 1959, no. 564 with ill. p. 267; Jürgen Schultze, Alexej Jawlensky, Cologne 1970, ill. 12 Created by Alexei von Jawlensky in Oberstdorf in 1912, the landscape “Fabrik in Bergen” is of extraordinary significance. In terms of its motif, menacingly dark palette and emphatic delineation of the visual elements through black contours, it represents a clear intensification compared to the works he painted in Murnau. As Armin Zweite wrote in the Jawlensky-catalogue in 1983: “[In Oberstdorf] he gave preference to heroic alpine panoramas which, in spite of all their stylisation, are permeated with an emotional power that goes far beyond that of the images created in Murnau. In the pictorial process, the expressive power of the lines takes on additional weight, and volumetric and spatial values appear even more rigorously transformed into their two-dimensional equivalents” (in: Alexej Jawlensky, exh. cat. München 1983, p. 61). "In the summer of 1912”, writes Jawlensky in his memoirs, “we all travelled to Oberstdorf and stayed there until December. […] There I painted different alpine landscapes, old men with beards and various, very strong female heads” (cited in: Alexej von Jawlensky, exh. cat. Dortmund 1998, p. 115). The alpine landscapes described in retrospect here also include “Fabrik in Bergen”. According to the work’s title, the buildings of an otherwise unspecified industrial site with a high smokestack and three telegraph poles are to be found in the foreground while four steep mountains rise up in the background, reaching to the upper edge of the picture and blocking any view into the distance. In just a few colour-filled shapes, the formations of a gigantic alpine landscape stretch across the painting; only the telegraph poles in the middle signal the presence of civilisation. Jawlensky frequently used the term “synthesis”, and it is particularly vividly illustrated here in the sense that reality is reduced to its essential elements. Outlined in bold black contours, the mountains appear in blues, reds, violets and turquoises disconnected from reality and evoke the atmosphere of an approaching thunderstorm. Jawlensky was very much aware of the Oberstdorf landscapes’ significance. “For me, this summer meant a major development in my art. I painted my best landscapes there in very bold, luminous colours, absolutely not naturalistic or materialistic […]. The forms were very boldly contoured […] and powerfully, out of an inner ecstasy. This was the turning point in my art. And until 1914, just before the war, I painted […] my strongest works in these years” (cited in: Roman Zieglgänsberger, Alexej Jawlensky, Köln 2016, p. 57).