Meditation N. 133 1935

Alexej von Jawlensky made this oil painting, Meditation N. 133, sometime in his career, and when I look at it, I see someone really working things out. It’s not just about the final image, but the whole dance of applying paint. The canvas is mostly dark, like a night sky, but then you’ve got these blocks of color, these rectangles that feel like shorthand for something real. Look at the orange one up top – you can see the brushstrokes, the way he layered the paint to get that fiery glow. And below, those vertical marks, some green, some blue, like rain or maybe the bars of a cage. It reminds me of Agnes Martin in a way, that same quiet intensity, that feeling that the painting is a record of a thought process. It's less about showing us something finished and more about inviting us to meditate along with him.