Kandinsky, Wassily

Black is like the silence of the body after death, the close of life.
-- Wassily Kandinsky, 1911

Kandinsky, Wassily, Russian in full VASILY VASILYEVICH KANDINSKY (b. Dec. 4 [Dec. 16, New
Style], 1866, Moscow, Russia--d. Dec. 13, 1944, Neuilly-sur-Seine, Fr.), Russian-born artist, one of the first
creators of pure ab straction in modern painting. After successful avant-garde exhibitions, he founded the
influential Munich group Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider; 1911-14) and began completely abstract
painting. His forms evolved from fluid and organic to geometric and, finally, to pictographic ( e.g.,
Tempered Élan, 1944).

Kandinsky, himself an accomplished musician, once said Color is the

keyboard, the eyes are the harmonies, the soul is the piano with many strings. The
artist is the hand that plays, touching one key or another, to cause vibrations in the
soul. The concept that color and musical harmony are linked has a long history,
intriguing scientists such as Sir Isaac Newton. Kandinsky used color in a highly
theoretical way associating tone with timbre (the sound's character), hue with pitch,
and saturation with the volume of sound. He even claimed that when he saw color he
heard music.

Biography

Born in Moscow in 1866, Kandinsky spent his early childhood in Odessa. His parents
played the piano and the zither and Kandinsky himself learned the piano and cello at
an early age. The influence of music in his paintings cannot be overstated, down to
the names of his paintings Improvisations, Impressions, and Compositions. In 1886,
he enrolled at the University of Moscow, chose to study law and economics, and after
passing his examinations, lectured at the Moscow Faculty of Law. He enjoyed success
not only as a teacher but also wrote extensively on spirituality, a subject that
remained of great interest and ultimately exerted substantial influence in his work. In
1895 Kandinsky attended a French Impressionist exhibition where he saw Monet's
Haystacks at Giverny. He stated, "It was from the catalog I learned this was a
haystack. I was upset I had not recognized it. I also thought the painter had no right
to paint in such an imprecise fashion. Dimly I was aware too that the object did not
appear in the picture..." Soon thereafter, at the age of thirty, Kandinsky left Moscow
and went to Munich to study life-drawing, sketching and anatomy, regarded then as
basic for an artistic education.

Ironically, Kandinsky's work moved in a direction that was of much greater

abstraction than that which was pioneered by the Impressionists. It was not long
before his talent surpassed the constraints of art school and he began exploring his
own ideas of painting - "I applied streaks and blobs of colors onto the canvas with a
palette knife and I made them sing with all the intensity I could..." Now considered to
be the founder of abstract art, his work was exhibited throughout Europe from 1903
onwards, and often caused controversy among the public, the art critics, and his
contemporaries. An active participant in several of the most influential and
controversial art movements of the 20th century, among them the Blue Rider which
he founded along with Franz Marc and the Bauhaus which also attracted Klee, Lyonel
Feininger (1871-1956), and Schonberg, Kandinsky continued to further express and
define his form of art, both on canvas and in his theoretical writings. His reputation
became firmly established in the United State s through numerous exhbitions and his
work was introduced to Solomon Guggenheim, who became one of his most
enthusiastic supporters.

In 1933, Kandinsky left Germany and settled near Paris, in Neuilly. The paintings from
these later years were again the subject of controversy. Though out of favor with
many of the patriarchs of Paris's artistic community, younger artists admired
Kandinsky. His studio was visited regularly by Miro, Arp, Magnelli and Sophie Tauber.

Kandinsky continued painting almost until his death in June, 1944. his unrelenting
quest for new forms which carried him to the very extremes of geometric abstraction
have provided us with an unparalleled collection of abstract art.

Russian born Wassily Kandinsky is considered as the inventor and theorist

of abstract painting in the 20th century. In 1910 Wassily Kandisnky had
seen an Islamic art exhibition in Munich - a highly decorative art style that
does not allow to show images of human beings. The same year Kandinsky
created his first abstract painting.

Kandinsky's Early Years

Wassily Kandinsky was born in Moscow in 1866. He grew up in a bourgois, cultured

family and learned to play the piano and the cello. In 1886 he began to study law and
economics at the Moscow University. After passing his exams he started a teaching
career at the Moscow Faculty of Law. He had many interests and apparently a great
gift to teach himself different skills.

In 1895 Kandinsky saw an exhibition of French impressionists in Moscow with

paintings of Monet and others. He was at first confused and would later described
how upset he was about Monet's painting The haystack. He thought that the painter
had no right to paint things in a way that made it difficult to recognize the subject.

In 1896, at the age of thirty, he decided to start a new career as an artist and went to
Munich in Southern Germany. He enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts for four years
until 1900.

Der Blaue Reiter

The art of Kandinsky established itself rather fast from 1903 on through many
exhibitions in Europe. In 1911 he formed together with other Expressionist painters
the group Der Blaue Reiter.

Other members of the group were the Swiss painter Paul Klee, Franz Marc, August
Macke, Gabriele Münter, Alexei von Jawlensky and Alfred Kubin. Kandinsky was the
leading head of the group together with Franz Marc. His dominant position was not
always to the delight of the other members.

Abstract Painting

Kandinsky became the theorist of abstract painting. In 1910 he created his first
abstract work - a watercolor. In 1912 he published a book on the theory of
abstraction.
The Blue Rider had only a short life due to the outbreak of World War I. In 1914
Kandinsky returned to Russia where he stayed until 1921. In 1922 he came back to
Germany to teach and work at the Bauhaus in Dessau until 1933. During the years at
the Bauhaus the artist had his most productive and prolific time.

When the German Nazis came to power in 1933, all modern art was considered as
entartet (degenerated art) and the Bauhaus was closed in 1933. Kandinsky's works
were removed from German museums and confiscated.

Emigration to Paris

The artist's next destination was Neuiily near Paris where he remained until his death
in 1944. At the time of his emigration to France, he was a well-established artist in
the United States. Salomon Guggenheim became one of his collectors.

Wassily Kandinsky continuously developed his style over the years but never made
any abrupt changes as for instance Pablo Picasso did. His early paintings were
expressive, colorful compositions but figural. The style reminds of Henri Matisse.
From around 1910 the transition to abstract painting can be recognized. The figural
elements were more and more reduced and finally they disappeared completely. Like
a musician, he titled his art works impressions, compositions or improvisations. From
around 1920 on, his style became rather geometrical.

The Lenbach Museum in Munich

If you should ever come to Munich, do not miss to visit the Lenbach Galerie or
Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus as it is officially named. It has an incredible
collection of Kandinsky paintings - mainly from his time with the Blue Rider. The
paintings were donated to the museum by Gabriele Münter, another artist of the Blue
Rider group. She was Kandinsky's companion until 1914 when he returned to Russia.
During the Nazi rule, Gabriele Münter had stored a large number of his paintings in
the basement of her house in the Bavarian countryside.

Russian painter, whose exploration of the possibilities of abstraction make him one of
the most important innovators in modern art. Both as an artist and as a theorist he
played a pivotal role in the development of abstract art.
Born in Moscow, December 4, 1866, Kandinsky studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in
Munich, Germany, from 1896 to 1900. His early paintings were executed in a
naturalistic style, but in 1909, after a trip to Paris during which he was highly
impressed by the works of the Fauves and postimpressionists, his paintings became
more highly colored and loosely organized. Around 1913 he began working on
paintings that came to be considered the first totally abstract works in modern art;
they made no reference to objects of the physical world and derived their inspiration
and titles from music.
In 1911, along with Franz Marc and other German expressionists, Kandinsky formed
Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider) group (so called for Kandinsky's love of blue and
Marc's love of horses). He produced both abstract and figurative works during this
period, all of which were characterized by brilliant colors and complex patterns.
Kandinsky's influence on the course of 20th-century art was further increased by his
activities as a theorist and teacher. In 1912 he published Concerning the Spiritual in
Art, the first theoretical treatise on abstraction, which spread his ideas through
Europe. He also taught at the Moscow Academy of Fine Arts from 1918 to 1921 and at
the Bauhaus in Dessau, Germany, from 1922 to 1933.
After World War I (1914-1918), Kandinsky's abstractions became increasingly
geometric in form, as he abandoned his earlier fluid style in favor of sharply etched
outlines and clear patterns. Composition VIII No. 260, for instance, is composed solely
of lines, circles, arcs, and other simple geometric forms. In very late works such as
Circle and Square, he refines this style into a more elegant, complex mode that
resulted in beautifully balanced, jewel-like pictures.
He was one of the most influential artists of his generation. As one of the first
explorers of the principles of nonrepresentational or “pure” abstraction, Kandinsky
can be considered an artist who paved the way for abstract expressionism, the
dominant school of painting since World War II (1939-1945). Kandinsky died in
Neuilly-sur-Seine, a suburb of Paris, on December 13, 1944.