Lot 207 Dα

For over six years, during his exile in Switzerland, Alexei Jawlensky worked on an artistic complex he officially referred to as “Variations on a Landscape Theme”. The view from the window of his improvised studio in Saint-Prex presented him with a passage from the landscape whose elements became the protagonists of this series of works. The unchanging repertoire of motifs consisting of cypresses, bushes, path, fence and garden gate were depicted in an increasingly abstract manner and invested with an essential character. In a process of contemplative absorption during the painting process, the artist succeeded in realising an infinite wealth of chromatic and formal variations. Each possesses an individual chromatic and compositional focal point and a characteristic visual mood.
In this work, the elliptical form of a large cypress occupies the entire height of the painting and provides the composition with a visual anchor. The other pictorial elements are grouped in a finely partitioned and surprisingly orderly formation in the right half of the picture. The selection of white and cool tones of blue and red as the colours for several individual forms establishes fresh accents within this variation otherwise dominated by earth tones.