With the outbreak of the First World War, Jawlensky had to leave the German Reich as he held Russian citizenship in 1914. He left Munich and fled to Switzerland where he and his family would find a new home for the next three years in St. Pex on Lake Geneva. This private disruption also made for a decisive turning point in his art. Jawlensky wrote in his memoirs: "My soul had changed through all the suffering and that required me to find other forms and colors to express what moved me. I began to paint my 'Variations on a Landscape Theme', which I saw from my window. And there were a few trees, a path and the sky. I started painting something to express what nature suggested with colors. Through hard work and with great excitement, I gradually found the right colors and forms to express what my spiritual me demanded." (A. v. Jawlensky, Lebenserinnerungen, quoted from: C. Weiler, Alexej Jawlensky, Hanau 1970 , p. 116). Based on the impression of the landscape in front of his studio’s window, Jawlensky developed a great ability to express his "spiritual self" in form and color. For Jawlensky's art, the natural model was merely the catalyst for a painting that is still representational , but at the same time achieved a maximum degree of abstraction. To this day, the distinctiveness and extraordinary modernity of Jawlensky's painting lies in this fascinating border zone, the oscillation between abstraction and figuration, which the artist primarily explored and developed in numerous landscape variations created in St. Prex The border zone is the individual form of expression with which he is able to give direct expression of his spiritual and emotional feelings - like a composer. When Jawlensky mastered the challenge of intellectual and emotional expression at the end of 1915, he eventually returned to his central and strongest motif, the portrait head, with restored vigor. The present painting "Mädchen (Kind)", recorded in Jawlensky's work notes with the date "1916 N.4", is one of the first of these strong female heads that Jawlensky created in this two-dimensional color scheme characterized by a deep sense of spirituality and a maximum degree of liberation. He put sole focus on the face in frontal view, bordered by a black contour line and the hair, it merely provides a kind of representational frame for a completely free play of form and color. With spontaneous brushstrokes, Jawlensky created a bright, cheerful color sound made up of light green tones, yellow, orange and magenta against a blue modulated background. It is the colors of youth, of a spring-like awakening, which in "Mädchen (Kind)" reflects the mood of Jawlensky's emotional and artistic new beginning in St. Prex. In addition, this step was to be decisive for Jawlensky's de-individualized "Mystical Heads", his "Saviours' Faces" and the "Meditations" that would emerge over the following years. [JS]