Jawlensky The Promised Face

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.