Blumenstrauss in Vase 1916

Alexej von Jawlensky painted this flower-filled vase with oil paint in luscious shades of red, green, and pink. Look closely, and you can almost see the artist's hand moving across the canvas, swirling pinks and reds into blooms, daubing greens and blues for glossy leaves. Imagine Jawlensky’s process: how the painting might have come into being, shifting and emerging through experimentation and intuition. There's something so joyous about the colour palette that I feel drawn to it. It makes me wonder if he was painting from real life or from memory. Is it the memory of a perfect bunch of flowers? Perhaps it’s an emotion – like joy – that he's trying to capture. Painters are in an ongoing conversation, you know? They swap ideas, across time, inspiring each other's creativity. Painting is an embodied expression which embraces ambiguity, allowing for multiple interpretations. Jawlensky's bouquet invites us to bring our own experiences, our own feelings, to the canvas, and let the conversation continue.