Jawlensky - The Promised Face - Grand Format

The whole issue of the face is central to the work of Alexei von Jawlensky (1846-1941), this Russian painter who emigrated to Germany. His work hovers between figurative and abstract representation of the face and offers another viewpoint on modernity. How is it that a contemporary painter managed to devote virtually all of his production to the face ? How could he choose for his work's paradigm such a traditional form as the icon ? Jawlensky exemplifies the artist who participated in modernity without belonging to it and experienced the frontiers between genres.
His artistic quest achieved an impossibility : the abstract face.