Wassily Kandinsky
Pioneer of abstraction and art theorist
Vassily Kandinsky by Adolf Elnain Photo credits : Georges Meguerditchian - Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI /Dist. RMN-GP Image reference : 4N55985 · via Wikipedia: Wassily Kandinsky · Public domain
He gave up a career teaching law and economics at age 30 to study art in Munich.[1] Kandinsky is known for likening painting to music, writing that "Colour is the keyboard, the eyes are the harmony, the soul is the piano with many strings".[2]
Quick Facts
- Born
- 16 December 1866
- Birthplace
- Moscow, Russia
- Died
- 13 December 1944
- Place of death
- Neuilly-sur-Seine, France
- Citizenship
- Russia, France (from 1939)
- Field
- Painting
- Training
- Academy of Fine Arts, Munich
- Movement
- Expressionism; abstract art
Facts from the source article.
Life and work
After the Russian Revolution, he helped establish the Museum of the Culture of Painting.[3] In 1909, Kandinsky witnessed a presentation by Aleksandra Unkovskaya on sound-to-colour synesthesia at the Theosophical Congress in Budapest.[4] This led him to develop the concept of a chain reaction experience: "Emotion — sensation — the work of art — sensation — emotion"[4] Kandinsky taught the basic design class and advanced theory at the Bauhaus.[5]
His examinations of forces on lines coincided with the research of Gestalt psychologists.[5] The German artist Gabriele Münter initially had Kandinsky as her instructor before he became her romantic partner.[3] The eruption of World War I prompted Kandinsky to go back to Moscow in 1914.[3] Kandinsky created his last two major compositions during the years 1936 and 1939.[6]
Within Composition IX, strong diagonal lines are employed, and the central shape resembles an embryo inside a womb.[6]
What the cited sources add
A Guardian article reports that Kandinsky claimed he quit law after seeing a Monet haystack because its true subject was "painting itself"[7] The same source notes that Kandinsky believed theosophist Madame Blavatsky's ideas all his life.[7] A Sotheby's article states that Kandinsky's painting Tensions calmées was purchased in September 1938 by émigré art dealer Karl Nierendorf.[8] The Sotheby's article also notes that Kandinsky's now-lost painting Zweierlei Rot was displayed in the Degenerate Art exhibition in Munich in 1937.[8]
A Gropius House source states that Kandinsky was one of Die Blaue Vier (Blue Four), formed in 1923 with Paul Klee, Lyonel Feininger and Alexej von Jawlensky.[9] According to the same source, Kandinsky's initial three Compositions were seized when the Bauhaus was raided by Nazis.[9]
References
- Wikipedia, "Wassily Kandinsky" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Düchting, "Wassily Kandinsky, 1866–1944: A Revolution in Painting", Taschen, 2000, p. 94 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Wassily Kandinsky" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Kandinsky, "Concerning the Spiritual in Art", Kessinger Publishing, 1911, p. 32 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Wassily Kandinsky" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Lindsay, "Kandinsky: Complete Writings on Art", Da Capo Press, 1994; Lindsay, Kenneth; Vergo, Peter (1994). Kandinsky: Complete Writings on Art. New York: Da Capo Press.; Lindsay, Kenneth and Peter Vergo. "Introduction". Kandinsky: Complete Writings on Art. New York: Da Capo Press, 1994. (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Wassily Kandinsky" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Воспоминания : репринт издания журнала "Вестник теософии", 1917 г. | Memoirs: reprint of the journal "Bulletin of Theosophy", 1917. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Wassily Kandinsky" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Düchting, "Kandinsky", Taschen, 2013, p. 68 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Wassily Kandinsky" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Michel Henry, Seeing the invisible, on Kandinsky, Continuum, 2009, pp. 38–45 (The disclosure of pictoriality). (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- "What drove Kandinsky to abstraction?", The Guardian, 25 June 2006. facts only, no text reused. theguardian.com
- Behr, "Wassily Kandinsky's 'Tensions calmées', 1937: Challenging 'Entartete Kunst'", Sothebys.com, 2021-06-18. facts only, no text reused. sothebys.com
- "Gropius House". facts only, no text reused. gropius.house
Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Wassily Kandinsky (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.
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