Wassily Kandinsky

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UNDER CONSTRUCTION
UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Wassily Kandinsky
House in Munich, 1908

Wassily Kandinsky (Russian: Васи́лий Васи́льевич Канди́нский) was a Russian abstract expressionist painter and Theosophist. He wrote a hugely influential book, Concerning the Spiritual in Art, and taught at the Bauhaus.

Early life and education

Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky was born on December 4, 1866 in Moscow. His father, a wealthy tea merchant, was from an aristocratic family. In 1871 Wassily's family moved to the Crimea, and the boy attended school in Odessa. He excelled in his studies, and returned to Moscow in 1886 to study law and political economy. After he was awarded a degree in 1892, he taught jurisprudence at Moscow university. His career path in academia seemed to be well established when he "turned down the offer of a professorship at the University of Dorpat in Estonia and went instead to Munich to study painting."[1] As a young boy he had always loved music and art - playing piano and cello, and painting in oils. "Art and music, ranging from traditional Russian religious icons and Rembrandt oils to a performance of Wagner's Lohengrin, left profound impressions on him... An 1895 Moscow exhibit exposed Kandinsky to the French Impressionists, and his feelings upon seeing Monet's Haystack seemed to predict the destiny that awaited him."[2]

Artistic career

Cover of Die Blaue Reiter almanac, 1912

Because young artists in Munich in the 1890s were exploring abstract, primitive, oriental, and medieval styles in the Jugendstil movement, Kandinsky had the opportunity to move in avant-garde art circles while he pursued traditional training. In 1901 he broke away from the academy to form an artists' association called the Phalanx which gave him an outlet for exhibition. He also gained experience in teaching art and built a reputation that helped him into major exhibitions like the 1902 Berlin Secession and the Salon d'Automne in Paris in 1904. He began to travel to Germany, Italy, Holland, Tunisia, and France during 1903-1908, and developed his own style. Back in Munich, "the impact of the Fauvist color, combined with a primitiveness and directness attributable to his Russian heritage, the artist began producing major expressionist landscape paintings." He organized the Neue Künstler Vereinigung [NKV, the New Artists' Association] in a revolt against the Munich Secession. After 1911, his continued movement toward abstraction led to a split in the group, and Kandinsky, with Franz Marc, formed Der Blaue Reiter [the Blue Rider]. They published a journal, called an almanac, that emphasized spiritual reality expressed in diverse styles of art. During this same period, Kandinsky was writing his Über das Geistige in der Kunst, or Concerning the Spiritual in Art, which was published in 1911.[3]


Kandinsky and Composition VIII, 1923
Kandinsky and Composition VIII, 1923
Inauguration of the new Bauhaus, Dessau,1926

Concerning the Spiritual in Art

Famous paintings

Bauhaus

[4]

Theosophical Society involvement

Later years

Additional resources

The Union Index of Theosophical Periodicals lists 9 articles by or about Kandinsky.

Articles

Video

Notes

  1. Richard Stratton, "Preface to the Dover Edition" Concerning the Spiritual in Art (New York: Dover, 1972), v.
  2. Richard Stratton, "Preface to the Dover Edition" Concerning the Spiritual in Art (New York: Dover, 1972), v.
  3. Richard Stratton, "Preface to the Dover Edition" Concerning the Spiritual in Art (New York: Dover, 1972), vi-viii.
  4. Mikey Smith, "Wassily Kandinsky: 8 of the Abstract Painter's Most Famous Works and Facts about His Life" Daily Mirror December 16, 2014 on Daily Mirror website.