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International audience

The work of Marianne Werefkin in Ascona The museum of Ascona in Switzerland is the owner of the archives of Marianne Werefkin, a Russian artist who left Russia in 1896 with the intention to renew the creative expression in her work. She lived 20 years in Germany and took refuge in Ascona at the beginning of the First World War to finally stay there until her death in 1938. These archives comprise a collection of writings, which are rich in philosophical and artistic considerations of this artist. In Ascona Werefkin’s style established. The subject of her paintings is the man whom she puts alone on the road of life in the middle of a landscape which carries a mystical/symbolic message, by revealing her idea on the question of which way to choose in life. Her philosophy and her search of transcendence is what connect Werefkin to Russian symbolic tradition, which advocates the quest for the eternal source of all things. This quest is expressed differently by Werefkin in her different periods. At the end of her life, Werefkin covers the Ideal that she searched in the figure of the monk, which concentrates on this complex symbolism, reuniting the symbols of transcendence, nature and God., Khomenko Irina. L’œuvre de Marianne Werefkin à Ascona. In: Histoire de l'art, N°58, 2006. Peintures. pp. 115-123.