Alexej von Jawlensky

This second volume of the catalogue of the oil paintings of Alexej von Jawlensky covers the artist's superbly exciting middle period, from his enforced departure from Munich in 1914 up to 1933, when the Nazis banned his work from exhibition. All 833 works discussed are illustrated - 340 of them in color. During World War I Jawlensky's painting underwent a radical change. In the series ""Variations on an Abstract Theme"" he stylized the view from his windows - a small garden, path, lake, mountains beyond - to a culmination of total intensity. He increasingly regarded the human face as the sign of an inner vision. The latter series ""mystical heads,"" ""Faces of the Saviour,"" and ""Abstract Heads"" pulsate with color and seem to express the combined forces of architecture, music, sculpture and dance. Introductory matter includes an essay by Angelica Jawlensky on the artist's serial painting, and unpublished correspondance with Kandinsky, Schmidt-Rottluff and Emmy Scheyer.