Meditation, the prayer

In 1921 Jawlensky, without a settled home since the war, moved from Ascona in southern Switzerland to Wiesbaden, after an exhibition of his work there had been a great success. He stayed for the rest of his life, and in Wiesbaden the Abstract Heads came by the hundred. This one, from 1922, still has the light, transparent colour of the early ones, and the face is drawn slightly to one side, as if withdrawn into meditation. The art historian Armin Zweite listed the few elements these heads are built from, and each of them can be found here, a large U for cheeks and chin, nose and brows as thin ridges meeting at a right angle so that a cross sometimes comes to mind, a horizontal line for the mouth, a triangle above the forehead pointing up to the crown, and the eyes reduced to strokes. On the back Jawlensky wrote his name, the title Gebet, meaning prayer, and the year.