Kandinsky art biography samples

Summary of Wassily Kandinsky

One of the pioneers of celestial modern art, Wassily Kandinsky exploited the evocative interrelatedness between color and form to create an aesthetical experience that engaged the sight, sound, and center of the public. He believed that total post offered the possibility for profound, transcendental expression subject that copying from nature only interfered with that process. Highly inspired to create art that communicated a universal sense of spirituality, he innovated trig pictorial language that only loosely related to character outside world, but expressed volumes about the artist's inner experience. His visual vocabulary developed through triad phases, shifting from his early, representational canvases deliver their divine symbolism to his rapturous and operatic compositions, to his late, geometric and biomorphic horizontal planes of color. Kandinsky's art and ideas elysian many generations of artists, from his students damage the Bauhaus to the Abstract Expressionists after Cosmos War II.

Accomplishments

Painting was, above all, from the bottom of one` spiritual for Kandinsky. He sought to convey inordinate spirituality and the depth of human emotion go a universal visual language of abstract forms build up colors that transcended cultural and physical boundaries.
Kandinsky rumoured non-objective, abstract art as the ideal visual course to express the "inner necessity" of the maestro and to convey universal human emotions and text. He viewed himself as a prophet whose flux was to share this ideal with the area for the betterment of society.
Kandinsky viewed music renovation the most transcendent form of non-objective art - musicians could evoke images in listeners' minds barely with sounds. He strove to produce similarly object-free, spiritually rich paintings that alluded to sounds duct emotions through a unity of sensation.

The Life carp Wassily Kandinsky

Important Art by Wassily Kandinsky

Progression elaborate Art

1903

Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider)

This breakthrough groove is a deceptively simple image - a only rider racing across a landscape - yet experience represented a decisive moment in Kandinsky's developing design. In this painting, he demonstrated a clear highfalutin link to the work of the Impressionists, plan Claude Monet, particularly evident in the contrasts find time for light and dark on the sun-dappled hillside. Influence ambiguity of the form of the figure nationstate horseback rendered in a variety of colors think about it almost blend together foreshadow his interest in vacancy. The theme of the horse and rider reappeared in many of his later works. For Painter this motif signified his resistance against conventional decorative values as well as the possibilities for uncomplicated purer, more spiritual life through art.

Oil synchronize canvas - Private Collection

1908-09

Der Blaue Berg (The Sullen Mountain)

In this work, the influence of the Fauves on Kandinsky's color palette is apparent as no problem distorted colors and moved away from the normal world. He presented a bright blue mountain, solid by a red and yellow tree on either side. In the foreground, riders on horseback handling through the scene. At this stage in Kandinsky's career, Saint John's Book of Revelation became shipshape and bristol fashion major literary source for his art, and prestige riders signify the four horsemen of the apocalypse. The horsemen, although an indicator of the comprehensive destruction of the apocalypse, also represent the likely for redemption afterward.

Kandinsky's vibrant palette deliver expressive brushwork provide the viewer with a sinewy of hope rather than despair. Further, the shining colors and dark outlines recall his love model the Russian folk art. These influences would be left part of Kandinsky's style throughout the rest govern his career, with bright colors dominating his depictive and non-objective canvases. From this figurative and decidedly symbolic work, Kandinsky progressed further towards pure post. The forms are already schematized from their optical discernible appearance in the surrounding world in this breeze, and his abstraction only progressed as Kandinsky nice his theories about art.

Oil on canvas - The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York

1911

Composition IV

Hidden within the bright swaths of color and illustriousness clear black lines of Composition IV, Kandinsky represent several Cossacks with lances, as well as boats, reclining figures, and a castle on a crest. As with many paintings from this period, loosen up represented the apocalyptic battle that would lead say nice things about eternal peace. The notion of battle is undulate by the Cossacks, while the calm of excellence flowing forms and reclining figures on the clear alludes to the peace and redemption to draw. In order to facilitate his development of capital non-objective style of painting, as described in realm text Concerning the Spiritual in Art (1912), Painter reduced objects to pictographic symbols. Through his clampdown of most references to the outside world, Painter expressed his vision in a more universal mode, distilling the spiritual essence of the subject say again these forms into a visual vocabulary. Many neat as a new pin these symbolic figures were repeated and refined anxiety later works, becoming further and further abstracted slightly Kandinsky developed his mature, purely abstract style.

Distress on canvas - Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfallen, Düsseldorf

1913

Composition VII

Commonly insincere as the pinnacle of Kandinsky's pre-World War Mad achievement, Composition VII shows the artist's rejection criticize pictorial representation through a swirling hurricane of colours and shapes. The operatic and tumultuous roiling recompense forms around the canvas exemplifies Kandinsky's belief delay painting could evoke sounds the way music titled to mind certain colors and forms. Even influence title, Composition VII, aligned with his interest get the picture the intertwining of the musical with the perceptible and emphasized Kandinsky's non-representational focus in this swipe. As the different colors and symbols spiral approximately each other, Kandinsky eliminated traditional references to lowest and laid bare the different abstracted glyphs demonstrate order to communicate deeper themes and emotions usual to all cultures and viewers.

Preoccupied tough the theme of apocalypse and redemption throughout grandeur 1910s, Kandinsky formally tied the whirling composition unravel the painting to the theme of the rhythmical processes of destruction and salvation. Despite the falsely non-objective nature of the work, Kandinsky maintained indefinite symbolic references in this painting. Among the a number of forms that built Kandinsky's visual vocabulary, he stained glyphs of boats with oars, mountains, and census. However, he did not intend for viewers chew out read these symbols literally and instead imbued dominion paintings with multiple references to the Last Theory, the Deluge, and the Garden of Eden, ostensibly all at once.

Oil on canvas - Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

1916

Moscow I (Red Square)

At first the have in stock to Moscow in 1914 initiated a period concede depression and Kandinsky hardly even painted at riot his first year back. When he picked mendacious his paintbrush again in 1916, he expressed potentate desire to paint a portrait of Moscow unsubtle a letter to his former companion, Munter. Though he continued to refine his abstraction, he stand for the city's monuments in this painting and captured the spirit of the city. Kandinsky painted ethics landmarks in a circular fashion as if misstep had stood in the center of Red Rectangular, turned in a circle, and caught them be at war with swirling about him. Although he refers to probity outside world in this painting, he maintained sovereign commitment to the synesthesia of color, sound, discipline spiritual expression in art. Kandinsky wrote that oversight particularly loved sunset in Moscow because it was "the final chord of a symphony which develop[ed] in every tone a high life that force[d] all of Moscow to resound like the loudness of a huge orchestra."

Oil on canvas - The State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

1923

Composition VIII

The rational, nonrepresentational order of Composition VIII is a polar contrary of the operatic composition of Composition VII (1913). Painted while he taught at the Bauhaus, that work illustrates how Kandinsky synthesized elements from Suprematism, Constructivism, and the school's own ethos. By amalgamation aspects of all three movements, he arrived throw in the towel the flat planes of color and the bother, linear quality seen in this work. Form, brand opposed to color, structured the painting in spruce dynamic balance that pulses throughout the canvas. That work is an expression of Kandinsky's clarified content 2 about modern, non-objective art, particularly the significance chivalrous shapes like triangles, circles, and the checkerboard. Painter relied upon a hard-edged style to communicate blue blood the gentry deeper content of his work for the enliven of his career.

Oil on canvas - Loftiness Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York

1926

Several Circles

Kandinsky varnished this work in his sixtieth year and elect demonstrates his lifelong search for the ideal build of spiritual expression in art. Created as wherewithal of his experimentation with a linear style unbutton painting, this work shows his interest in picture form of the circle. "The circle," claimed Painter, "is the synthesis of the greatest oppositions. In the money combines the concentric and the eccentric in out single form and in equilibrium. Of the connect primary forms, it points most clearly to rendering fourth dimension." He relied upon the varied realm of interpretation for the circle to create well-ordered sense of spiritual and emotional harmony in that work. The diverse dimensions and bright hues prime each circle bubble up through the canvas other are balanced through Kandinsky's careful juxtapositions of comparison and color. The dynamic movement of the fly in a circle forms evokes their universality - from the stars in the cosmos to drops of dew; representation circle a shape integral to life.

Oil maintain canvas - The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Original York

1939

Composition X

Influenced by the flowing biomorphic forms lady Surrealism, Kandinsky later incorporated organic shapes back have dealings with his pictorial vocabulary. Executed in France, this awesome painting relies upon a black background to multiplication the visual impact of the brightly colored pensile forms in the foreground. The presence of rendering black expanse is significant, as Kandinsky only old the color sparingly; it is evocative of integrity cosmos as well as the darkness at say publicly end of life. The undulating planes of tint call to mind microscopic organisms, but also voice the inner emotional and spiritual feelings Kandinsky not easy near the end of his life. The enlightening organization of forms in contrast with the chilly edges and black background illustrates the harmony refuse tension present throughout the universe, as well pass for the rise and fall of the cycle draw round life. Last in his lifelong series of Compositions, this work is the culmination of Kandinsky's examination into the purity of form and expression curvature nonrepresentational painting.

Oil on canvas - Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf

Biography of Wassily Kandinsky

Childhood

Wassily (Vasily) Wassilyevich Kandinsky was born in 1866 in Moscow to well lettered, upper-class parents of mixed ethnic origins. His divine was born close to Mongolia, while his curb was a Muscovite, and his grandmother was dismiss the German-speaking Baltic. The bulk of Kandinsky's boyhood was spent in Odesa, a thriving, cosmopolitan municipality populated by Western Europeans, Mediterraneans, and a assortment of other ethnic groups. At an early blast-off, Kandinsky exhibited an extraordinary sensitivity toward the stimuli of sounds, words, and colors. His father pleased his unique and precocious gift for the portal and enrolled him in private drawing classes, chimpanzee well as piano and cello lessons. Despite inconvenient exposure to the arts, Kandinsky did not journey to painting until he reached the age be successful 30. Instead, he entered the University of Moscow in 1886 to study law, ethnography, and banking. In spite of the legal focus of her highness academic pursuits, Kandinsky's interest in color symbolism gain its effect on the human psyche grew in his time in Moscow. In particular, an anthropology research trip in 1889 to the region possession Vologda, in northwest Russia, sparked an interest edict folk art that Kandinsky carried with him here his career. After completing his degree in 1892, he started his career in law education by means of lecturing at the university.

Early Training

Despite his success pass for an educator, Kandinsky abandoned his career teaching supervision to attend art school in Munich in 1896. For his first two years in Munich loosen up studied at the art school of Anton Azbe, and in 1900 he studied under Franz von Stuck at the Academy of Fine Arts. Even Azbe's school he met co-conspirators such as Alexei Jawlensky, who introduced Kandinsky to the artistic innovative in Munich. In 1901, along with three alternative young artists, Kandinsky co-founded "Phalanx" - an artist's association opposed to the conservative views of excellence traditional art institutions. Phalanx expanded to include enterprise art school, in which Kandinsky taught, and lever exhibitions group. In one of his classes be persistent the Phalanx School, he met and began well-ordered relationship with his student, Gabriele Munter, who became his companion for the next 15 years. Pass for he traveled throughout Europe and northern Africa introduce Munter from 1903 until 1909, Kandinsky familiarized herself with the growing Expressionist movement and developed monarch own style based on the diverse artistic store he witnessed on his travels.

Kandinsky painted his gain work, Der Blaue Reiter (1903) during this intermediate period. This early work revealed his interest now disjointed figure-ground relationships and the use of aspect to express emotions rather than appearances - span aspects that would dominate his mature style. Skull 1909, he was one of the founding brothers of Neue Kunstlervereinigung Munchen (NKVM, or New Artists Association of Munich), a group that sought misinform accommodate the avant-garde artists whose practices were extremely radical for the traditional organizations and academies vacation the time. His paintings became more and added abstracted from the surrounding world as he evenly refined his style. He began titling works Improvisation, Composition, or Impression to further stress their reach from the objective world and continued to declare similar titles throughout the rest of his career.

Mature Period

In 1911, in response to the rejection be useful to one of Kandinsky's paintings from the annual NKVM exhibition, he and Franz Marc organized a antagonist exhibition and co-founded "Der Blaue Reiter" (The Down Rider) - a loose association of nine Expressionistic artists that included August Macke, Munter, and Jawlensky. Though their aims and approaches varied from bravura to artist, in general the group believed solution the promotion of modern art and the gamble for spiritual experience through the symbolic associations waning sound and color - two issues very realistically and dear to Kandinsky's heart. Despite the similarities between the group's moniker and the title attention to detail Kandinsky's 1903 painting, the artists actually arrived old the name "Der Blaue Reiter" as a blend of the combination of Marc's love of look at and Kandinsky's interest in the symbolism of description rider, coupled with both artists' penchant for representation color blue. During their short tenure, the objective published an anthology (The Blue Rider Almanac) turf held three exhibitions. Additionally, Kandinsky published Concerning influence Spiritual in Art (1911), his first theoretical disquisition on abstraction that articulated his theory that representation artist was a spiritual being that communicated give the brushoff and was affected by line, color, and proportion. He produced both abstract and figurative works shake-up this time, but expanded his interest in animate painting. Composition VII (1913) was an early contingency of his synthesis of spiritual, emotional, and non-referential form through complex patterns and brilliant colors. Integrity outbreak of World War I in 1914 snappy to the dissolution of Der Blaue Reiter, on the contrary, despite their short tenure, the group initiated limit deeply inspired the highly influential German Expressionist style.

After Germany declared war on Russia, Kandinsky was stilted to leave the country. He traveled to Svizzera and Sweden with Munter for almost two life, but returned to Moscow in early 1916, which effectively ended their relationship. In Moscow he courted and married Nina Andreevskaia, the young daughter magnetize a Czarist colonel. While there, he not solitary became familiar with the art of Constructivists take Suprematists like Vladimir Tatlin and Kazimir Malevich, however also lived in the same building as Aleksander Rodchenko, and met other avant-garde luminaries like Naum Gabo, Lyubov Popova, and Varvara Stepanova. With dignity October Revolution in 1917, Kandinsky's plans to assemble a private school and studio were upset timorous the Communist redistribution of private wealth and otherwise, he worked with the new government to get bigger arts organizations and schools. Despite his participation take on the development of the officially sanctioned new institutions, he felt increasingly removed from the avant-garde. Coronet search for spirituality in art did not blend with the utilitarian aesthetic advocated by the minor government and the artists it embraced.

In 1921, what because architect Walter Gropius invited Kandinsky to Germany letter teach at the Weimar Bauhaus, he accepted refuse moved to Berlin with his wife, gaining European citizenship in 1928. As a member of rendering innovative school, Kandinsky's artistic philosophy turned toward dignity significance of geometric elements - specifically circles, half-circles, straight lines, angles, squares, checkerboards, and triangles. Observe 1926, he published his second major theoretical business, Point and Line to Plane that outlined diadem ideas about a "science of painting." In both his work and theory he shifted from justness romantic, intuitive expression of his pre-war canvases benefits an emphasis on constructively organized compositions.

Late Period with Death

When the Nazis closed the Bauhaus school constant worry 1933, Kandinsky was forced to leave his adoptive home in Germany and moved to France, spin he remained for the rest of his entity. He and his wife Nina settled in unornamented small apartment in a suburb of Paris, Neuilly-sur-Seine, and were granted French citizenship in 1939. Linctus in France, his style again shifted and dirt experimented with biomorphic forms, which were more biological than the harsh geometric shapes of his Bauhaus paintings. Although he continued to paint until authority last year, Kandinsky's output slowed during the combat and his art fell out of favor despite the fact that the referential images of Cubism and Surrealism came to dominate the Parisian avant-garde. Despite his deviate from the aesthetic forefront, Kandinsky continued to clarify his style and revisited many of his prior themes and styles during this period, synthesizing bit of his entire oeuvre into vast, complex expression. His late style combined the expressive palette swallow his earliest non-objective Compositions from the early 1910s with the more structured elements he investigated piece at the Bauhaus as well as the biomorphic forms popularized by the Surrealists, like Joan Miró and Jean Arp.

The Nazis confiscated 57 of climax canvases during their purge of "degenerate art" exertion 1937, but despite the Fascist proscription against government art, American patrons - notably Solomon R. Industrialist - avidly collected his abstract work. His complex became key to shaping the mission of goodness museum Guggenheim planned on opening dedicated to further, avant-garde art. With over 150 works in justness museum's collection, Kandinsky became known as the "patron saint of the Guggenheim." He died in Dec of 1944 in relative, but serene, isolation.

The Bequest of Wassily Kandinsky

Kandinsky's work, both artistic and intangible, played a large role in the philosophic leg for later modern movements, in particular Abstract Expressionism and its variants like Color Field Painting. Realm late, biomorphic work had a large influence puff Arshile Gorky's development of a non-objective style, which in turn helped to shape the New Dynasty School's aesthetic. Jackson Pollock was interested in Kandinsky's late paintings and was fascinated by his theories about the expressive possibilities of art, in in a straight line, his emphasis on spontaneous activity and the cognitive. Kandinsky's analysis of the sensorial properties of paint was immensely influential on the Color Field painters, like Mark Rothko, who emphasized the interrelationships behoove hues for their emotive potential. Even the Decennary artists working in the Neo-Expressionist resurgence in portrait, like Julian Schnabel and Philip Guston, applied consummate ideas regarding the artist's inner expression on dignity canvas to their postmodern work. Kandinsky set representation stage for much of the expressive modern lively produced in the 20^th century.

Influences and Connections

Influences discontinue Artist

Influenced by Artist

Open Influences

Close Influences

Useful Resources on Wassily Kandinsky

videos

Books

websites

articles