Kind mit Puppe

Painted in 1910, a pivotal year of intense creativity and bold painterly experimentation in Alexej von Jawlensky’s career, Kind mit Puppe is a vibrantly coloured portrait of the artist’s only son Andreas, at the tender age of eight. The pair enjoyed a close relationship – the artist explained proudly that his son had inherited his passion and talent for painting, and that when he was just four years old, Andreas had begun working with him in his studio regularly. ‘He always wanted to paint in colour, never to sketch in black and white,’ Jawlensky recalled (‘Memoir dictated to Lisa Kümmel, Wiesbaden, 1937’ M. Jawlensky, L. Pieroni-Jawlensky & A. Jawlensky, Alexej von Jawlensky, Catalogue Raisonné of the Oil Paintings, vol. 1, 1890-1914, London, 1991, p. 32). Andreas also frequently accompanied his parents on their trips around Europe, visiting Paris and Brittany, Munich and the Bavarian Alps, where the family joined Wassily Kandinsky and Gabriele Münter for extended sojourns in the market town of Murnau in 1908 and 1909. Several photographs from their time there show Andreas at the heart of the group of adults – one such image taken by Kandinsky records an outing through Murnau’s picturesque streets, where Andreas, dressed in a sailor suit and carrying a toy, turns and smiles at the camera, Jawlensky, Münter and the artist Marianne von Werefkin looking fondly on.

Andreas recalled Kind mit Puppe being completed in his father’s studio at 23 Giselastrasse in Munich. It is one of a small group of paintings the artist was working on around this time that focus on the pairing of young children with the diminutive, humanoid form of a doll (Jawlensky et al., nos. 321-324). Here, Andreas holds the petit stuffed toy up to his cheek, his right hand splayed as he hugs it tightly to his chest. Glancing away from the artist, his lips slightly pursed and his head tilted towards his doll, Andreas appears lost in his own thoughts as his father works at his easel. With this detail, Jawlensky emphasises how young and innocent his son still is, finding comfort and joy in the simple, small toy. Rather than searching for a precise resemblance, the driving force of this colour-filled portrait is clearly emotional, even spiritual. As Jawlensky explained, ‘The artist says only that which he has in himself, not that which he sees with his eyes’ (quoted in J.T. Demetrion, Alexei Jawlensky: A Centennial Exhibition, exh. cat., Pasadena, 1964, p. 27). Rather than diligently rendering the particularities of Andreas’s likeness, Jawlensky simplifies his features, using quick strokes of vibrant pigment to capture the general characteristics of his form. In this way, he foregrounds the composition in Andreas’s youthfulness, imbuing the painting with a strong symbolic element – his son becomes an emblem not only of the future, but also the artist’s own legacy, which he will carry on as he grows.

Jawlensky was strongly influenced by modern French painting at this time, which he had encountered over the course of several visits to Paris with his long-time companion and patron, Marianne von Werefkin. His art during this period showcases the impact of these influences, variously invoking the bold, expressive brushwork of Vincent van Gogh, the strong planes of colour and striking dark outlines of Paul Gauguin, and the blisteringly vibrant chromatic language of Henri Matisse and the Fauves. As a consequence, Jawlensky began to free colour from its traditionally descriptive role in his painting, allowing it to become a channel for personal expression, through which he could communicate new dimensions of emotional and spiritual depth. As he explained: ‘To reproduce these things that are there without being, to reveal them to others by allowing them to pass through my sympathetic understanding, by making them apparent through the passion which I feel for them – that is the goal of my life as an artist’ (quoted in C. Weiler, Jawlensky: Heads Faces Meditations, New York, 1971, p. 105).

Kind mit Puppe exemplifies this aspect of Jawlensky’s visionary aesthetic. Andreas’s features are described in a mixture of luminous pink hues and soft green tones, short touches of blue and turquoise capturing the subtle play of shadows across his visage. His eyes glow, jewel-like, the deep, mysterious pools of bright cobalt pigment drawing the viewer’s gaze; they are matched by the small points of sky-blue paint marking out the doll’s eyes, a comparison accentuated by their close proximity to one another. There is a vibrant sense of immediacy and spontaneity within the painting, the board filled with vigorous, expressive brushwork, recording the level of energy exerted by the artist as he worked swiftly to capture Andreas before the young boy moved and disappeared from the studio. This physical impression of time passing adds a note of poignancy to the painting, in a way acknowledging that this moment, and the boy’s youthful innocence, is fleeting. Held in the same prestigious private collection for almost forty-five years, Kind mit Puppe is a powerful testament to both Jawlensky’s radical approach to painting, and the artist’s profound love for his son.