Gabriele Münter on Alexej von Jawlensky

“They [ Kandinsky, Jawlensky and Klee, in their Der Blaue Reiter-period till 1914] were constantly arguing about art and each of them, at first, had his own ideas and his own style. Jawlensky was far less intellectual than Kandinsky or Klee and was often frankly puzzled by their theories. My 1908 portrait entitled 'Zuhören' ['Listening'] actually represents Jawlensky, with an expression of puzzled astonishment on his chubby face, listening to Kandinsky’s new theories of art.”

“..we parted in 1914, when Kandinsky, being an enemy alien [because of the outbreak of World War 1. - he had a Russian nationality], had to flee from Germany to Switzerland, as did Jawlensky and Marianne von Werefkin too [Switzerland].. ..Ever since we parted in 1914, I have worked mainly by myself. After the First World War, here in Munich, we found that our Blue Rider group had broken up. Marc and Macke had both been killed [World War 1.], Kandinsky, Jawlensky and Marianne were no longer here..”

“Yes, we [= Marianne von Werefkin and Gabriele Münter shared very much the same tastes and ideas, when we lived together in this house (the 'Russian house' in Murnau]. She was extremely perceptive and intelligent, but Jawlensky (Marianne's husband', but not married] didn't always approve of her work.. .Suddenly Jawlensky would pick on some tiny detail of one of Marianne’s best and most original pictures and exclaim: 'That patch of color, there, is laid on much too flat and smoothly. It's just like old Riepin [Russian painter Ilya Repin], and former art teacher of them both]. Of course it was nonsense and he was only saying it to annoy her. But Jawlensky really was a devotee of the 'touche de peinture' of the French [[Fauvism|Fauvists, rather than an innovator - a believer in a new kind of art of the future.”