WASSILY
KANDINSKY (1866-1944)
Kandinsky was an influential Russian painter and art
theorist. He is credited with painting the first pure abstract art. Unsympathetic to the official
theories on art in Communist Russia, Kandinsky moved to Germany where he taught at the Bauhaus school of art
and architecture from 1922 until the Nazis closed it in 1933. He relocated to France, became a French
citizen in 1939, and remained there for the rest of his life.
Kandinsky was influenced by Monet's impressionistic style.
His discussion on Monet’s haystacks:
"That it was a haystack the catalogue informed me. I could
not recognize it. This non-recognition was painful to me. I considered that the painter had no right to paint
indistinctly. I dully felt that the object of the painting was missing. And I noticed with surprise and confusion
that the picture not only gripped me, but impressed itself ineradicably on my memory. Painting took on a fairy-tale
power and splendor".
"Der Blaue
Reiter" (1903)
Oil on Canvas (private collection, Zurich)
“Murnau,
Dorfstrasse” (Street in Murnau, A Village Street,
1908)
Oil on Cardboard (The Merzbacher Collection, Switzerland)
“Bild mit
Kreis” (Picture with a Circle, 1911)
Oil on Canvas, (Georgian National Museum, Tbilisi)
Later in his career, Kandinsky called ‘Picture with a Circle’ the first abstract
painting.
“Composition
VII” (1913)
Oil on Canvas (The State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow)
Kandinsky has commented that “Composition VII” was the most complex piece he ever
painted.
“Moscow I” (1916)
Oil on Canvas (The State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow)
“On White
II” (1923)
Oil on Canvas (National Museum of Modern Art, Paris)
Kandinsky’s use of black has been interpreted as the silence of death. Black
cuts through the white background with a riotous effect, shattering the peace of the colorful combination of colors
– visual metaphors of “opportunities in life”.
“Throughgoing
Line” (1923)
Oil on Canvas
“Yellow-Red-Blue”
(1925)
Oil on Canvas (National Museum of Modern Art, Paris)
“Composition
X” (1939)
Oil on Canvas (Kunstsammlung Nordrhein, Dusseldorf)
z
|