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2008.11.18 (Tue) - Wassily Kandinsky

I became a big fan of Kandinsky, who is said to have drawn the first abstract paintings, while looking at his picture-book at Bullet's. His works are pretty musical. In fact he was very conscious about music, as much so as calling his paintings "improvisations" or "compositions." And I think we can say his "Composition VIII" really is music entirely.

Kandinsky was born in 1866, making him a contemporary of Debussy, but the two apparently didn't have any interaction because Kandinsky was born in Moscow and worked Munich, Weimar and Dessau when the composer was alive. The painter moved to Paris(1934.), where he painted "Composition X", only after the composer's death. I cannot help but wonder what great work was to be done if they met.

He studied law and economics at the University of Moscow and was offered a professorship at the University of Dorpat, but he instead chose to pursue the painting career, relocating himself to Munich to start studying art. (This alone gives a huge impact as a biography, doesn't it?)

After studying at the Academy of Fine Arts Munich, he gradually gained recognition and became the president of New Artists' Association Munich. Later he formed a group The Blue Rider with Franz Marc and others. The outbreak of World War I sent him back to Moscow temporarily, but in 1922 he was invited to teach at Bauhaus which was founded in Weimar.

The Bauhaus moved to Dessau in 1925 in order to get away from political hostility, and was eventually shut down by the Nazis 1933. After that Kandinsky worked in Paris, but he was quite isolated in the city where Impressionism and Cubism were in full swing.

Out of his works, I particularly like the ones which came after "On White II" - the ones with lots of geometric figures such as lines, circles, rectangles, arcs, angles.

There probably was a big opposition to abstract art before, but today it has already won full recognition. Thanks to the pioneers like Kandinsky.

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