Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944)
“Color is the keyboard, the eyes are the hammers, the soul is the piano with many strings. The artist is the hand which plays, touching one key after another, to cause vibrations in the soul.”
Painter and Art Theorist, Essayist, Poet and Arts Community Organizer
Movements: Der Blaue Reiter (Blue Rider), Bauhaus, Abstraction
Training: Academy of Fine Arts, Munich ( lawyer & teacher first, started to paint in 1896 at age of 30)
Influences: Monet’s Haystacks & Wagner’s Lohengrin initially inspired him to take up painting; Fauves, folk art, Blavatsky & theosophy (religious philosophy drawing fr div sources such as mysticism, Buddhism, and Neo-Platonism in pursuit of an underlying universal harmony); Schoenberg; synesthesia (capacity to see sound and hear color)
Painter and Art Theorist, Essayist, Poet and Arts Community Organizer
Movements: Der Blaue Reiter (Blue Rider), Bauhaus, Abstraction
Training: Academy of Fine Arts, Munich ( lawyer & teacher first, started to paint in 1896 at age of 30)
Influences: Monet’s Haystacks & Wagner’s Lohengrin initially inspired him to take up painting; Fauves, folk art, Blavatsky & theosophy (religious philosophy drawing fr div sources such as mysticism, Buddhism, and Neo-Platonism in pursuit of an underlying universal harmony); Schoenberg; synesthesia (capacity to see sound and hear color)
Key Works: Early Years: fantastic figural landscapes w/stained glass colors
Blaue Reiter, 1903.
Murnau, Dorfstrasse (Street in Murnau, A Village Street), 1908.or The Blue Mountain, 1908-9. (color increasingly independent of form; more planar comp.)
Blaue Reiter, 1903.
Murnau, Dorfstrasse (Street in Murnau, A Village Street), 1908.or The Blue Mountain, 1908-9. (color increasingly independent of form; more planar comp.)
Blue Rider period (1911-14): vivid color, increasing abstract
Picture with a Circle, 1911. considered his first completely abstract painting.
1912: publishes “Concerning the Spiritual in Art”
Little Painting with Yellow (Improvisation), 1914.
Return to Russia (1914-21) outbreak of WWI. joined Constructivists in Moscow, bureaucrat organizing museums & art schools
Picture with a Circle, 1911. considered his first completely abstract painting.
1912: publishes “Concerning the Spiritual in Art”
Little Painting with Yellow (Improvisation), 1914.
Return to Russia (1914-21) outbreak of WWI. joined Constructivists in Moscow, bureaucrat organizing museums & art schools
Bauhaus (1922-33): becomes more geometric & linear
1926: publishes “Point and Line to Plane”
On White II, 1923. or Yellow-red-blue, 1925.
Paris (33-44): biomorphic abstraction, surfaces tighten up; more stylized.
Composition IX, 1936 or X, 1939.
Also: produced 3 synaesthetic plays combining the arts of painting, music, theater and dance into Wagnerian total works of art (gesamtkunstwerks).
Degenerate: work declared “degenerate” by the Nazis & seized from the Bauhaus in 1933.
Patrons: popular w/American collectors from early on. The Guggenheim has >150 works; K is called the “patron saint” of the Guggenheim
Composition IX, 1936 or X, 1939.
Also: produced 3 synaesthetic plays combining the arts of painting, music, theater and dance into Wagnerian total works of art (gesamtkunstwerks).
Degenerate: work declared “degenerate” by the Nazis & seized from the Bauhaus in 1933.
Patrons: popular w/American collectors from early on. The Guggenheim has >150 works; K is called the “patron saint” of the Guggenheim
Kandinsky and Theory:
Concerning the Spiritual in Art (1912): extremely influential treatise on non-objectivity that addressed the sensorial and symbolic properties of color. He proposed that each color has its own effect on the psyche and argued that the artist is motivated by an “inner necessity” to create. He began to draw parallels between painting and music as art forms capable of conveying the spiritual. The artist is a spiritual being that communicated through, and is affected by, line, color, and composition.
“Generally speaking, color directly influences the soul. Color is the keyboard, the eyes are the hammers, the soul is the piano with many strings. the artist is the hand that plays, touching one key or another purposively, to cause vibrations in the soul”.
Point and Line to Plane (1926): the “science of painting” and the significance of points, line forms, and geometric elements - specifically circles, half-circles, straight lines, angles, squares, checkerboards, and triangles. In his work from the Bauhaus era (when this was published) K augmented his color theory with elements of form psychology - and his paintings are more clearly geometric & linear.
Legacy: Action Painting, Abstract Expressionism, Color Fioeld Painting, Action Painting, Surrealism. Theories were extremely influential.
See more at: http://www.theartstory.org/artist-kandinsky-wassily.htm#sthash.nldf5j3S.dpuf
Composition VII, 1913 (11 min talk): http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/Kandinsky-CompositionVII.html
“Generally speaking, color directly influences the soul. Color is the keyboard, the eyes are the hammers, the soul is the piano with many strings. the artist is the hand that plays, touching one key or another purposively, to cause vibrations in the soul”.
- re: the artist as “prophet:” the authentic artist creating art from “inner necessity” stands at the apex of an upward moving pyramid representing the spirituality of humanity. At the apex, the artist’s mission is to lead others to the pinnacle w/his work.
- Colors associated w/universal sounds and meanings (see next page)
Point and Line to Plane (1926): the “science of painting” and the significance of points, line forms, and geometric elements - specifically circles, half-circles, straight lines, angles, squares, checkerboards, and triangles. In his work from the Bauhaus era (when this was published) K augmented his color theory with elements of form psychology - and his paintings are more clearly geometric & linear.
Legacy: Action Painting, Abstract Expressionism, Color Fioeld Painting, Action Painting, Surrealism. Theories were extremely influential.
See more at: http://www.theartstory.org/artist-kandinsky-wassily.htm#sthash.nldf5j3S.dpuf
Composition VII, 1913 (11 min talk): http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/Kandinsky-CompositionVII.html
Kandinsky's seriously abbreviated color theory(!):
Impressions, Improvisations, Compositions?
“Impressions”: direct impressions of “external nature” expressed in a drawing/painting form
“Improvisations”: paintings which were inspired by “events of the spiritual type”
“Compositions”: works less spontaneous that either Improvs/Impress because they were shaped and worked out in a series of studies over a long period of time.
“Impressions”: direct impressions of “external nature” expressed in a drawing/painting form
“Improvisations”: paintings which were inspired by “events of the spiritual type”
“Compositions”: works less spontaneous that either Improvs/Impress because they were shaped and worked out in a series of studies over a long period of time.
Kandinsky’s Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider) (1903)
- simple image (a lone rider racing across a landscape) yet it represented a decisive moment in Kandinsky's developing style.
- demonstrated a clear stylistic link to the work of the Impressionists, (the contrasts of light and dark on the sun-dappled hillside)
- foreshadows interest in abstraction w/impressionistic handling
- horse and rider become recurring theme
- motif represents transformative power of abstraction, rejection of naturalism, and signifies movement to universal sensations and spirituality
Little Painting with Yellow (Improvisation), oil on canvas, 1914
- scale: not so little (30” x 40”), despite the name
- painted in Munich (Blue Rider period) right before the outbreak of WWI which forced him to return to Russia
- “Improvisation” refers to series of increasingly abstract works begun 1910, even the term (improvisation) reflects his interest in abstraction and the relationship between music and painting
- apocalyptic vision, which for Kandinsky was a spiritual cataclysm - a moment of both destruction and rebirth/redemption
- see colors and sounds evoked by the painting (color theory diagram)
- Little Painting with Yellow brief analysis, from Nelson-Atkins exhibition
Re: Little Painting with Yellow, a simple “jeopardy style" quiz
Paintings below are all analyzed on Artstory.com. You can pull them & use their analyses as examples. Kandinsky is hard to quickly summarize(!).
Der Blaue Berg (The Blue Mountain) (1908-09) Composition IV (1911) Composition VII (1913) Moscow I (Red Square) (1916) Composition VIII (1923) Several Circles (1926) Composition X (1939)
Der Blaue Berg (The Blue Mountain) (1908-09) Composition IV (1911) Composition VII (1913) Moscow I (Red Square) (1916) Composition VIII (1923) Several Circles (1926) Composition X (1939)
Der Blaue Reiter: Munich (1911-1914)
Group of artists that shared an interest in abstracted forms and prismatic colors, which they felt had spiritual values that could counteract the corruption and materialism of their age.
Key Figures: Wassily Kandinsky (1869-1954), Franz Marc (1880-1954),
also: Alexej von Jawlensky, Gabrielle Munter
Introduced: 1911 in Munich, dissolved w/outbreak of war
Name: The Blue Rider
Kandinsky & Marc both liked blue and often painted horses
Key Works: Kandinsky, obviously
Franz Marc, Great Blue Horses, 1911 and Animal Destinies, 1913.
Key Figures: Wassily Kandinsky (1869-1954), Franz Marc (1880-1954),
also: Alexej von Jawlensky, Gabrielle Munter
Introduced: 1911 in Munich, dissolved w/outbreak of war
Name: The Blue Rider
Kandinsky & Marc both liked blue and often painted horses
- For K the horse & rider symbolized moving beyond representation;
- M often incorporated horses in his work which centered on animals as symbols of rebirth
Key Works: Kandinsky, obviously
Franz Marc, Great Blue Horses, 1911 and Animal Destinies, 1913.
Artstory overview of Expressionism
Blue Rider statements
MOMA good/quick overview of German expressionism w/lots of images, timeline, maps etc.