Sketch from Murnau 1908 - 1909

Curator: Up next we have "Sketch from Murnau," painted around 1908 or 1909 by Alexej von Jawlensky. Editor: Oh, I like that. It’s wonderfully chaotic and intense. The color combinations vibrate against each other. Curator: Jawlensky was deeply influenced by Fauvism at this time, evident in the vibrant colors and bold brushstrokes. You can see he applied paint directly from the tube to express intense emotions. This artwork belongs to his Expressionist phase in the Bavarian town. Editor: Yes, the fauvist handling of color and brushstroke is unmistakable here, there is little subtlety. It looks like blocks of color were freely applied across the surface. He renders a tangible world using subjective perceptions and feeling— Curator: It represents a fascinating period in art history where artists explored spiritual expression through non-naturalistic forms. The years Jawlensky spent in Murnau significantly shifted both his own artistic focus and the aesthetic approach taken by the community. Editor: Note how the composition guides the eye, right into the city, by means of diagonal recessions and abrupt angles—almost violently drawing you to the dark patch that is on the left, but the chromatic scale moves up into the light. There is something unbalanced with how dark it gets relative to the light parts. Curator: During Jawlensky's years in Murnau, from 1908-1914, it became a significant hub for avant-garde artists, like Kandinsky and Münter, who gathered there exploring abstraction and spirituality. It changed artistic trends across Europe. Editor: One really has to marvel at Jawlensky’s bravura in translating lived experience through raw colors that express both internal, psychological insight, and pure chromatic structure. It really shows a city that is not quite harmonious in form or feeling. Curator: Exactly! It provides insight into how socio-cultural environments impact creative innovation and why certain regions become hotspots for certain artistic movements. What started with a Fauvist sensibility became deeply ingrained in German Expressionism, contributing in many ways to culture-wide expression. Editor: So, at a structural level we can read it as Jawlensky seeing fauvism's tools of subjective vision as means for Expressionistic emotional vision.