Russian painter and art theorist

Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky

was born,

December 4, 1866

[December 16, by the Gregorian calendar]

in Moscow, Russia.

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Kandinsky is one of the first creators of pure abstraction in modern painting, known for his lyrical style and innovative theories on nonfigurative art.

In his 1910 treatise Concerning the Spiritual In Art, Kandinsky popularized his belief that abstract colors and forms can be used to express the “inner life” of the artist. He taught this and other lessons at the Bauhaus, the historic Weimar institution that brought together artists including Joseph Albers, Lazlo Maholy-Nagy, and Piet Mondrian, amongst others.

He had a strong interest in the relationship between art and classical music, this theme apparent in his orchestral Composition VI (1913), where colliding forms and colors move across the canvas.

In 1911 Kandinsky played a central role in organizing Der Blaue Reiter, a group of artists named in part after Kandinsky’s favorite color, blue and began completely abstract painting. His forms evolved from fluid and organic to geometric and, finally, to pictographic.

Kandinsky made color theory an important part of the Bauhaus curriculum, and his preoccupation with primary form (basic geometric shapes including the triangle, circle, and square) and primary colors (red, blue, and yellow) influenced a new generation of artists, among them Herbert Bayer and Sonia Delaunay-Terk. During this time, his abstractions became increasingly hard-edged, as in Orange, with the circle emerging as his favored form:

“a precise but inexhaustible variable, that points most clearly to the fourth dimension.”

In this, Kandinsky remained steadfast in his belief in the power of color and form to supplant language and to open our perception to a transcendent plane.

Kandinsky believed that the most advanced art would awaken “emotions that we cannot put into words.” For him, abstraction provided a vehicle for direct expression, circumventing language. He believed that color and form possessed their own affective power, acting on the viewer independently of images and objects.

“Color is a means of exerting direct influence upon the soul.
Color is a keyboard. The eye is the hammer. The soul is the piano, with its many strings.”

His influence on 20th-century art, often filtered through the work of more accessible painters, was profound.

An artist I truly admire and treasure the times [not enough] I was fortunate to see his work in life! As a musician also, I can certainly ‘hear’ the musicality of his paintings too.

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So here’s a glimpse of his work & words which in this artist are intertwined

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“Everything starts from a dot.”

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“Every work of art is the child of its age and, in many cases, the mother of our emotions.”

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“To create a work of art is to create the world.”

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“An empty canvas is a living wonder… far lovelier than certain pictures.”

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“Painting is a thundering collision of different worlds, intended to create a new world in and from the struggle with one another, a new world which is the work of art.”

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“Each color lives by its mysterious life.”

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“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.”

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“Color is a power which directly influences the soul.”

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“Color provokes a psychic vibration. Color hides a power still unknown but real, which acts on every part of the human body.”

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“The sound of colors is so definite that it would be hard to find anyone who would express bright yellow with base notes, or dark lake with the treble.”

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“The artist must train not only his eye but also his soul.”

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“A painter, who finds no satisfaction in mere representation, however artistic, in his longing to express his inner life, cannot but envy the ease with which music, the most non-material of the arts today, achieves this end. He naturally seeks to apply the methods of music to his own art.”

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“The artist is not a ‘Sunday child’ for whom everything immediately succeeds. He does not have the right to live without duty. The task that is assigned to him is painful, it is a heavy cross for him to bear.”

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“Music is the ultimate teacher.”

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“With few exceptions, music has been for some centuries the art which has devoted itself not to the reproduction of natural phenomena, but rather to the expression of the artist’s soul, in musical sound.”

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“The deeper the blue becomes, the more strongly it calls man towards the infinite, awakening in him a desire for the pure and, finally, for the supernatural… The brighter it becomes, the more it loses its sound, until it turns into silent stillness and becomes white.”

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“Our epoch is a time of tragic collision between matter and spirit and of the downfall of the purely material world view.”

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“The spirit, like the body, can be strengthened and developed by frequent exercise. Just as the body, if neglected, grows weaker and finally impotent, so the spirit perishes if untended.”

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“Is beautiful what proceeds from an inner necessity of the soul. Is beautiful what is inwardly beautiful.”

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“That is beautiful which is produced by the inner need, which springs from the soul.”

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“All methods are sacred if they are internally necessary. All methods are sins if they are not justified by internal necessity.”

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“Lend your ears to music, open your eyes to painting, and… stop thinking! Just ask yourself whether the work has enabled you to ‘walk about’ into a hitherto unknown world. If the answer is yes, what more do you want?”

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“Imagination is what allows your mind discover.”

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Photos

Concerning the Spiritual In Art

[clink on the link above to read]

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Music remained an important touchstone for Kandinsky

One of his first proto-abstract canvases had been inspired,

by a concert of Arnold Schoenberg’s atonal work in 1911.

However I have chosen an early tonal work to listen to.

Verklärte Nacht

(Transfigured Night / La Nuit transfigurée), Op.4

by Austrian-born composer, music theorist, teacher, writer, and painter

Arnold Schoenberg [1874 – 1951]

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Pierre Boulez: Membres de L’Ensemble Intercontemporain
Charles-André Linale: violin / violon
Maryvonne Le Dizès-Richard: violin / violon
Jean Sulem: viola / alto
Garth Knox: viola / alto
Philippe Muller: cello / violoncelle
Pieter Strauch: cello / violoncelle

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For more information on Kandinsky:

https://www.wassilykandinsky.net/

https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/wassily-kandinsky-1382

https://www.wassily-kandinsky.org/

https://www.moma.org/artists/2981

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wassily_Kandinsky

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Enjoy!

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Be Safe