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Modernisms 1900-1980
Course: Modernisms 1900-1980 > Unit 2
Lesson 2: Expressionism- Expressionism, an introduction
- Expressionism as Nordic?
- Der Blaue Reiter
- Kirchner, Street, Dresden
- Kirchner, Self-Portrait As a Soldier
- Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, "Street, Berlin"
- Paula Modersohn-Becker, Self-Portrait Nude with Amber Necklace, Half-Length I
- Emil Nolde, "Young Couple," 1913
- Jawlensky, Young Girl in a Flowered Hat
- Schiele, Seated Male Nude (Self-Portrait)
- Nazi looting: Egon Schiele's Portrait of Wally
- Schiele, Hermits
- Kandinsky, Apocalypse, Abstraction
- Kandinsky, Improvisation 28 (second version), 1912
- Vasily Kandinsky, "Klänge (Sounds)"
- Franz Marc and the animalization of art
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Jawlensky, Young Girl in a Flowered Hat
Alexej von Jawlensky, Young Girl in a Flowered Hat, 1910, oil on cardboard (Albertina, Vienna). Created by Beth Harris and Steven Zucker.
Want to join the conversation?
- I was wondering if their was some Asian influence in this work. The woman appears somewhat like a geisha. Since Jawlensky was Russian, was he or other artist of the period influenced by Asia?(18 votes)
- To some extent all the artists in Europe were influenced by Japanese art at the time, because Japanese art was becoming known in the Western world. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japonism
A rosebud mouth was fashionable and could be created by makeup. She holds a fan because fans were fashionable. I would call her expression demure more than coquettish. She looks down so that you cannot see her eyes. All these traits and the lack of depth/perspective in the picture could be seen as Japanese influence. Her skin is yellow, but considering the other colours of the painting I would not put much emphasize in that. The large flowered hats were typical of the period but not Japan.(4 votes)
- at, you mention the artist Ilya Repin, and show this picture: 0:30http://www.abcgallery.com/R/repin/repin46.html
but the colors are off. Is there a copy of the more white one someone could link me to, or an explanation?(2 votes)- I took a look at the version you linked to and it is far too dark and yellow. But even the one we show is imperfect. Accurate color reproduction remains elusive.(5 votes)
- At, he says that the painting is on cardboard. Does that make it hard to preserve? I would assume that cardboard would be bad for a permanent work of art. 3:30(3 votes)
- You're right -- cardboard definitely makes it hard to preserve. Just how hard would depend on what kind of cardboard/primers/paints were used -- an art conservator would try to determine the level of acidity, etc. Some types of cardboard fall apart after only a few years, while other kinds can last much longer, especially if moisture, light, and temperature levels are monitored. But in the end, art collectors and museums understand that certain artworks just can't last forever.(3 votes)
- Why is this painting (at) labelled as "expressionism at it's most extreme", influenced by Matisse's fauvism, but not as a fauvist painting itself? It seems to have all the characteristics! 0:28(3 votes)
- Fauvism was an artist driven style that was really around only from 1904-1908, or so, and the term Fauve really refers to the people who exhibited at the 1905 Salon d'Automne in Paris. The press referred to them as "Fauves" or wild beasts, because of their use of color. So, yes, this painting has many of the characteristics of a Fauvist painting, but the artist was not involved with that set and the painting is too late to be part of the movement.(3 votes)
- What is the woman portrayed wearing on her head?(1 vote)
- The arist has painted a flowered hat on her head, which is the name of the painting(2 votes)
- How could such a choice of "brilliant" colors come together almost harmoniously? Why is it that her green face and orange background seem to go together so well?(1 vote)
- How old was the artist before he died? Also, is there more information on Russian or European art.(1 vote)
- He was 76 years old. If you are interested in russian art you can find some information here:
http://www.russianartgallery.org/
Anyway the best way to discover Russian art is to go and to see it over there =)(1 vote)
- I think the " yellow green face " is actually blue. So the colors they say when mixed together turn blue.(1 vote)
- @Who was the artist mentioned? 3:42(1 vote)
- Why is she a young girl? Why not a young boy/man? What's so important with the meaning of the painting being a girl that another gender couldn't express?(1 vote)
- I think the painting is meant to emphasize beauty, color, and brightness and using a young girl is a good way of representing all these ideas while remaining modest.(1 vote)
Video transcript
(lighthearted music) Male Voiceover: We're in
the Albertina in Vienna, and we're looking at Alexej von
Jawlensky's brilliant paiting, the Young Woman in a Flowered Hat. Female Voiceover: When you said brilliant, I think you meant that
it was both brilliant in terms of its drawing
and its conception, but also in terms of its color. Male Voiceover: I don't
think I can imagine a more radically painted or colored image. Female Voiceover: That orange
is absolutely florescent. Male Voiceover: This is
expressionism at its most extreme. Here's an artist who was a Russian. He studied, actually, with Ilya Repin, one of the leading Russian
artists of the turn of century, and then gives up that
high pitch naturalism for a kind of expressiveness that
comes out of Matisse's fauvism, as related to the work of Kandinsky, who was a close friend for many years. We have this just the height
of radicality in painting. Female Voiceover: Certainly emerging
from the art of Gauguin, also in VanGogh. Jawlensky was in the middle
of that whole current at the end of the 19th and
beginning of the 20th century. Male Voiceover: That issue
is especially important for Russian artists like this, because as Gauguin was looking
back to a more rural life and a kind of more direct
and sort of pure life; for instance, in Brittany
and in the South Seas, most famously, the Russians were
often looking back to their folk art; they were looking back to Russian icons, they were looking back to
the simple printed billboards that were being produced at that time. They were looking for a kind of veracity, a kind of directness, a
kind of truth in paitning. Female Voiceover: There is
a sense of primitivism here, although the figure has a sense
of sophistication about her, an urban sophistication with
that fabulous flower hat, and the lovely fan that she holds
very modestly toward her face; but, there is something
primitivistic in the dark outlines, the abstraction, the sense of geometry. Male Voiceover: I think you've
gotten directly to the heart of the painting, for me at least, which is this serious conflict
between the subject matter, which is modest and almost quiet. You have this woman who's
not looking at us directly. There's an emphasis on her eyelashes. There's all of the accouterments of
high fashion with the fan, with the hat, but then painted in the most violent, most aggressive manner one can imagine. There's this expression of 20th
century modernism at its extreme. Female Voiceover: Mm hmm (affirmtative), and for me, it almost
flips back and forth. Sometimes when I look at this, I see her, and I see those beautiful long
eyelashes and the delicacy of her face and the smallness of her red lips, and then other times I
look at it and I almost flip a switch and I see
harsh black outlines, and the gestures that the artist
made to create these forms. There's something very raw about that. Male Voiceover: It's raw, it's strident,
and it's just fabulous to look at. Female Voiceover: But, it's
also really pleasurable. The colors, although they're
bright, they're harmonious. They hold together. Male Voiceover: But they're
absolutely violent in relationship to the colors that we would expect. For instance, the woman has a
green face, and green-yellow face. Female Voiceover: But it works.
Sometimes you hardly even notice. You have to sort of remind
yourself her face is green, because in a way, it feels natural. Male Voiceover: There is something that is beautifully artificial in that way. It's as if this like it is
not the warm light of the sun, but this is the electric
light of the modern era. This is not painting on canvas,
this is not even on paper. This is actually on cardboard, and the artists allow that rich
brown color of the cardboard to come through in between the
areas that has been painted. It reminds me, actually,
of some of the work that was done by Toulouse-Lautrec
at the end of the 19th century, where you had somebody who was interested in the artificiality of light in cafes, on the stage, and there is
something about that here. Female Voiceover: [Daga] did that, too, with ballerinas and
the light on the stage. Male Voiceover: That's right,
so there is this notion of the artificiality of color, of
light, of form, or representation itself as very much a part of this
early 20th century moment, this expressionism, this deeply
emotional expressive moment. (lighthearted music)