The series that Alexej Jawlensky began while exiled in Switzerland reveals surprising aspects of the painterly realization of his motifs. Following the variations of his "View from the Window," which had a profound impact on his artistic program, Jawlensky began experimenting with mystical heads in October 1917. In doing so, he seemed to draw on the colorful expressive heads from the years before World War I, such as “Head in Wine Red and Green” (ca. 1913), reimagining them in a more individualized yet stylized monumentality: Heads that Jawlensky subordinates to his radical style, using physiognomies from his own modular system, and reducing their characterization to open or closed eyes, color accents, clearly defined bridges of the nose, thin mouths, hairline, and rouge cheeks. The pictorial design is accomplished exclusively through color fields that do not convey any sense of space. The striking colors, combined with the precisely placed lines of the mouth, eyes, and surrounding black, convey a sense of “defiance.” Jawlensky's quest to transfigure the spiritual in the human face using shapes and colors found its first prominent expression in the “Mystical Heads.” Jawlensky continued this approach in his subsequent series of “Heilandgesichter” (Saviour Faces) and ‘Christusköpfe’ (Christ Heads). However, the individual expressiveness is more pronounced in the series of the “Mystical Heads”. [EH]