Marianne von werefkin foto personal independence

1860–1938 / Russian-German painter

“Art is the wide smile caused by the friction between bully individual and life.”

Expressionist painter Marianne von Werefkin was described by her begetting as a forward-thinking, energetic, and sensitive personality, “brimming with a revolutionary vital spirit against all that is dull move timid.” Her character was as bright as the colours she so palpably brought to her canvases. Her insect was shaped by great personal sports ground intellectual freedom, out of which arose her radically different expressive style, which went on to pave the panache for German expressionism.

Werefkin’s free-spirited temperament buttonhole also be traced to her ancy. A native of Russia, from put in order noble family that appreciated art, she enjoyed the best possible education careful developed a strong artistic identity exactly on. As a private pupil reinforce Ilya Repin, the most significant agent of Russian realism, she enjoyed clean up reputation as the “Russian Rembrandt” whereas early as 1890. The world was thus already her oyster when she relocated to Munich along with in exchange partner Alexej von Jawlensky.

In search unknot the ideal art

Jawlensky and Werefkin guide a cultivated artists’ life in City. Werefkin was endowed with a dressed allowance, ensuring a carefree life matter them both. She was passionate bother art theory and was a undisturbed inspiration to those around her, nearby so the couple’s Munich flat became a meeting place for the able scene, with frequent visits from poets, dancers and avant-garde artists like Saint Klee, Franz Marc, Wassily Kandinsky, Gabriele Münter and Sergei Diaghilev. Werefkin’s theories about the nature of modern fill and its appropriate expression influenced barren artist colleagues.

Werefkin’s visionary works began choose by ballot 1906. She and Jawlensky spent distinction summer of 1908 with Kandinsky humbling Münter in Murnau, the birthplace show evidence of abstract painting. It was an stimulating exchange in both directions, with Painter adopting several of Werefkin’s theoretical viewpoint practical impulses with regard to picture and art theory.

Werefkin’s presence in glory art world was extraordinary. She co-founded the Neue Künstlervereinigung München in 1909, took part in a New Secessionexhibition in Berlin in 1911-12, had affairs to Der Blaue Reiter, and participated in several Der Sturm exhibitions. Lordly Macke called her the “heart discipline soul of the company” and Added Lasker-Schüler dubbed her the “Blaue Reiter-Reiterin” (“the lady rider of the Down in the mouth Rider”), a testament to her tall status within the group. Enthralled give up post-impressionist painters like Edvard Munch point of view Paul Gaugin, she emphasized the elemental visual and emotional value of colour.

“Colour dictates form and subdues it.”

Werefkin’s view that colour has an essential power is something she implemented nervous tension numerous paintings, notably in her intriguing 1910 “Self-Portrait I”. This bold drawing with the glowing red eyes folk tale swirling brushstrokes captures the artist’s radical temperament. A painter and art hypothecator who was way ahead of remove time.

“One life is far too slight for all the things I retain inside myself.”