I was taken to see the World Exhibition in Moscow [in 1880]. I found it all very boring. But when I came to a section devoted to art – there were only paintings, and this was the first time of my life [Jawlensky was 16 years old] I had seen paintings – I was so deeply affected that it was a case of Saul becoming Paul. It was the turning point of my life. Even since then art has been my ideal, my holy of holiest, that for which my entire soul and my entire self yearn.
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!
I now began to search for a new path in art [from 1914, with the outbreak of World War 1. ]. It was a major task. I understood that I did not have to paint what I saw, not even what I felt, but only that which lived within me, in my soul. To put it in symbolic terms, it is like this: I felt within myself, within my breast, the keyboard of an organ and I had to make it resonate. And the nature that was in front of me served me only as a prompter. And that was a key that unlocked this organ and made it resonate. In the beginning it was very difficult. But little by little, it became easy for me to use colours and forms to find what was within my soul.