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I knew that I must paint not what I saw, but only what was in me, in my soul. Figuratively speaking, it was like this: In my heart I felt as if there were an organ, which I had to sound. And nature, which I saw before me, only prompted me. And that was a key that unlocked this organ and made it sound.. .They are songs without words.

— Alexej von Jawlensky Life Memories (1938)

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Notes from Wikiquote

from: 'Lebenserinnerungen', 1938

More quotes by Alexej von Jawlensky

..human faces are for me only suggestions to see something else in them – the life of colour, seized with a lover's passion.

His pictures [of Nolde, which Jawlensky met in 1912] remind me of my own in the strength of their expression. I have a passionate love for Nolde and his art.

The whole of French art is a matter of seeing Nature as beautiful, very beautiful, in fact. But on the whole this is not enough. You have to create your own Nature – Van Gogh!

This acquaintance [with Marianne Werefkin ] would change my life. I became a friend of hers, of this clever woman gifted with genius.

I am now mainly painting faces and landscapes; I am obsessed day and night by the vision of faces and colours. And the spiritual vision is my mystical world.

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Alexej von Jawlensky (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.