Write An Essay On Kandinsky's Accomplishments
Wassily Kandinsky was born in Moscow in 1866. From a very early age Kandinsky’s parents encouraged him to play the piano as they both did. He started to read music while playing cello and piano. This interest in music from a young age would later on become a huge part of Kandinsky’s art career. Kandinsky also took a liking too color and how when put together colors seemed to stimulate the eye. Kandinsky attended the Moscow University but studied Economics Law and Politics, not what you would think the pioneer of abstract painting would have been studying. Although his art career took off, he was considered prestigious and could have had a profession in the field. In 1899, at the age of 33, Kandinsky was heavily influenced by the work of Claude Monet, an impressionist painter from France. His paintings fascinated Kandinsky because the paintings were so abstract and different from the normal pieces. Monet’s paintings inspired him to move to Munich where he studied under Anton Azbé. After mastering drawing and sketching skills he enrolled in the Academy of Fine Arts. Kandinsky
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moved back to Moscow in 1914 after the beginning of the war but was disappointed with the public understanding of art in Russia, so he returned to Germany in 1921 where he took up teaching at the Bauhaus School of Art. Unfortunately, in 1933 the school was closed by the Nazis and he moved to France where he spent the last five years of his life. Kandinsky’s wall art is unique because of his ability to create purely abstract work. The definition of “pure abstract art” is any piece that uses a visual language of form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. It was partially because of his ability to see sound as color. Kandinsky achieved pure abstraction by replacing the castles and hilltop towers of his early landscapes with stabs of paint or, as he saw them, musical notes and chords that would visually "sing" together. That’s why his studies on color theory were difficult to understand and even had an unknown aspect to them due to his almost paranormal visual interpretations. He explained that his devotion to beauty, spiritual aspects of life, and art were his inner necessity’s and dedicated his art to that. Kandinsky did something that was pretty much unheard of at the time and completely eliminated reality from his artworks. He did this by experimenting with minimal composition and color. His paintings were the most abstract reflections of music, conveying pure emotional states. In his writings, the painter often reflected on the relation between music and fine arts. He 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 then another to cause vibration in the soul." This just strikes me as genius, for an artist in the 1900’s to see art like this at this level. Kandinsky took art and stretched the boundaries of what is art and what is paint on a canvas. Kandinsky is believed to have had “synaesthesia” a harmless condition that allows a person to appreciate sounds, colors or words with two or more senses simultaneously. In his case, colors and painted marks triggered particular sounds or musical notes and vice versa. This concept is very interesting to me so I researched it and found that the ability to hear color, see music or even taste words results from an accidental cross-wiring in the brain, and is found in one in 2,000 people, and in many more women than men. The earliest recorded case comes from the Oxford academic and philosopher John Locke in 1690, when he said he experienced the color scarlet when he heard the sound of a trumpet. This is how the world’s first truly abstract paintings were created. He wanted to show sound through sight and create the equivalent of a symphony that would stimulate not just the eyes but the ears as well. He recalled hearing a strange hissing noise when mixing colors in his paint-box as a child, and later became an accomplished cello player, which he said represented one of the deepest blues of all instruments.
Cover of Der Blaue Reiter almanac Kandinsky was involved in various artistic movements and organizations. Back in 1908, he had founded the New Artists Association of Munich and also became a member of Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider), a group of Munich artists established by Russian immigrants in Germany. The group had a major impact on the development of Expressionism. The Der Blaue Reiter was a movement lasting from 1911 to 1914. Kandinsky wrote later that the name was derived from Marc's enthusiasm for horses and Kandinsky's love of riders, combined with both love of the color blue. For Kandinsky, blue is the color of spirituality, the darker the blue, the more it awakens human desires. The main focus of the group was to express spiritual truths through their art. They believed in the promotion of modern art and the connection again between visual art and music. Other art forms like cubist, fauvist, and rayonist ideas caused them to move towards abstraction. Kandinsky was also part of the Bauhaus movement together with Paul Klee and composer Arnold Schoenberg.
Composition 8
Even in the last years of his life, Kandinsky was highly innovative and his works often shocked the art world.
He painted until the day of his death, December 13th, 1944. His works were shown in exhibitions all over Europe, creating controversy everywhere, because of their pure abstract nature. Kandinsky is often regarded as the founder of abstract art, as his main inspiration – music – is abstract by nature. Much like music, Kandinsky’s paintings did not represent the realistic world but tried to depict the emotions of the human soul. He designated many of his works with musical terms, naming them “improvisations” or “compositions”. The artist wrote that "music is the ultimate teacher" and often described his creative process through music: "I applied streaks and blobs of color onto the canvas with a palette knife and I made them sing with all the intensity I
could..."
Kandinsky was just a really cool and interesting person. I’m so happy I had to research him because I learned a lot. I really liked the idea of synaesthesia, I had never heard of anything like that and it really got me thinking. After learning about how he saw his own paintings I tried to visualize how he saw them. I took this a step farther and have been looking at many Kandinsky pieces while listening to music and you can definitely see difference in emotion with each piece just like each song has different emotions. Kandinsky is easily my favorite artist of the 20th Century just because of how different and weird he was.
moved back to Moscow in 1914 after the beginning of the war but was disappointed with the public understanding of art in Russia, so he returned to Germany in 1921 where he took up teaching at the Bauhaus School of Art. Unfortunately, in 1933 the school was closed by the Nazis and he moved to France where he spent the last five years of his life. Kandinsky’s wall art is unique because of his ability to create purely abstract work. The definition of “pure abstract art” is any piece that uses a visual language of form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. It was partially because of his ability to see sound as color. Kandinsky achieved pure abstraction by replacing the castles and hilltop towers of his early landscapes with stabs of paint or, as he saw them, musical notes and chords that would visually "sing" together. That’s why his studies on color theory were difficult to understand and even had an unknown aspect to them due to his almost paranormal visual interpretations. He explained that his devotion to beauty, spiritual aspects of life, and art were his inner necessity’s and dedicated his art to that. Kandinsky did something that was pretty much unheard of at the time and completely eliminated reality from his artworks. He did this by experimenting with minimal composition and color. His paintings were the most abstract reflections of music, conveying pure emotional states. In his writings, the painter often reflected on the relation between music and fine arts. He 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 then another to cause vibration in the soul." This just strikes me as genius, for an artist in the 1900’s to see art like this at this level. Kandinsky took art and stretched the boundaries of what is art and what is paint on a canvas. Kandinsky is believed to have had “synaesthesia” a harmless condition that allows a person to appreciate sounds, colors or words with two or more senses simultaneously. In his case, colors and painted marks triggered particular sounds or musical notes and vice versa. This concept is very interesting to me so I researched it and found that the ability to hear color, see music or even taste words results from an accidental cross-wiring in the brain, and is found in one in 2,000 people, and in many more women than men. The earliest recorded case comes from the Oxford academic and philosopher John Locke in 1690, when he said he experienced the color scarlet when he heard the sound of a trumpet. This is how the world’s first truly abstract paintings were created. He wanted to show sound through sight and create the equivalent of a symphony that would stimulate not just the eyes but the ears as well. He recalled hearing a strange hissing noise when mixing colors in his paint-box as a child, and later became an accomplished cello player, which he said represented one of the deepest blues of all instruments.
Cover of Der Blaue Reiter almanac Kandinsky was involved in various artistic movements and organizations. Back in 1908, he had founded the New Artists Association of Munich and also became a member of Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider), a group of Munich artists established by Russian immigrants in Germany. The group had a major impact on the development of Expressionism. The Der Blaue Reiter was a movement lasting from 1911 to 1914. Kandinsky wrote later that the name was derived from Marc's enthusiasm for horses and Kandinsky's love of riders, combined with both love of the color blue. For Kandinsky, blue is the color of spirituality, the darker the blue, the more it awakens human desires. The main focus of the group was to express spiritual truths through their art. They believed in the promotion of modern art and the connection again between visual art and music. Other art forms like cubist, fauvist, and rayonist ideas caused them to move towards abstraction. Kandinsky was also part of the Bauhaus movement together with Paul Klee and composer Arnold Schoenberg.
Composition 8
Even in the last years of his life, Kandinsky was highly innovative and his works often shocked the art world.
He painted until the day of his death, December 13th, 1944. His works were shown in exhibitions all over Europe, creating controversy everywhere, because of their pure abstract nature. Kandinsky is often regarded as the founder of abstract art, as his main inspiration – music – is abstract by nature. Much like music, Kandinsky’s paintings did not represent the realistic world but tried to depict the emotions of the human soul. He designated many of his works with musical terms, naming them “improvisations” or “compositions”. The artist wrote that "music is the ultimate teacher" and often described his creative process through music: "I applied streaks and blobs of color onto the canvas with a palette knife and I made them sing with all the intensity I
could..."
Kandinsky was just a really cool and interesting person. I’m so happy I had to research him because I learned a lot. I really liked the idea of synaesthesia, I had never heard of anything like that and it really got me thinking. After learning about how he saw his own paintings I tried to visualize how he saw them. I took this a step farther and have been looking at many Kandinsky pieces while listening to music and you can definitely see difference in emotion with each piece just like each song has different emotions. Kandinsky is easily my favorite artist of the 20th Century just because of how different and weird he was.