Meditation N. 133 1935

Alexej von Jawlensky painted this small and intense painting, Meditation N. 133, with oils on board. The artist seems to have constructed the image gradually, one layer informing the next. I wonder what Jawlensky was thinking when he made this? I imagine he would have wanted to reduce everything down to its essence. Dark planes are punctuated with marks of earthy color: orange, olive, and gray. Patches of color sit on top of the painting in no particular order, with strokes of paint standing up proud from the surface of the canvas. The way he applied the paint makes me think of him dragging the brush down the canvas in quick, intuitive sweeps. I think he's in conversation with other painters here; I see the influence of the Fauves, who were using pure color in radical ways. The longer I look, the more this painting feels like a door to another world.