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Wassily
Kandinsky -- Russian Expressionist
Painter, 1866-1944
"I applied streaks and blobs of colours onto the
canvas with a palette knife and I made them sing with all the intensity I
could..." Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) now considered to be
the founder of abstract art which often caused controversy among the
public, the art critics, and his contemporaries. Kandinsky
painted almost until his death. His unrelenting quest for new forms
which carried him to the very extremes of geometric abstraction have
provided the art world with an unparalleled collection of abstract art.
"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." ~Wassily Kandinsky
"There is no must in art because art is free." ~ Wassily
Kandinsky
Assignment:
Use the Web sites below to learn about the life of Wassily Kandinsky.
1.
Select six different
paintings or works that show his progression of styles throughout his
lifetime.
2.
Study his later works.
What connections do you see to music? How was music important to Kandinsky?
How does this come across in his work?
3
What connections do you see to mathematics? Challenge: Use as many math
words as you can in describing one of Kandinsky's works.
4.
Describe one of his works
of geometric shapes. Use the art elements and principles of design
(include emphasis or dominance, movement, contrast, rhythm and or
repetition, and unity).
Web Museum
http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/kandinsky/
Kandinsky:
Compositions – book review by Mark Harden
http://www.glyphs.com/art/kandinsky/
Kandinsky – Carol
Gerten (site has pop-ups and pop-under ads)
http://sunsite.dk/cgfa/kandinsky/index.html
Biography – Carol
Gerten Fine Art
http://sunsite.dk/cgfa/kandinsky/kandinsky_bio.htm
Mark Harden’s
Artchive- Wassely Kandinsky
http://www.artchive.com/artchive/K/kandinsky.html
Wassily Kandinsky at
the Guggenheim - Biography
http://www.guggenheimcollection.org/site/artist_works_71_0.html
(3 pages of images)
Wassily Kandinsky –
see the progression of styles
http://www.rollins.edu/Foreign_Lang/Russian/kandin.html
More on Wassily
Kandinsky- Artcyclopedia
http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/kandinsky_wassily.html
Woodcuts and Fine Art
Prints
http://mattis.kfki.hu/english/blauehtm/1kandins/2/index.html
http://mattis.kfki.hu/english/blauehtm/1kandins/2/
http://spaightwoodgalleries.com/Pages/Kandinsky.html
http://spaightwoodgalleries.com/Pages/Kandinsky2.html
http://www.kandinskyart.com/index.php
view
all
Google
Kandinsky Woodcut image search
Portrait
of Kandinsky 1906 color
woodcut (no longer on line)
Quotes by Wassily
Kandinsky
http://www.cavant-garde.com/quotes/kandinsk.shtml
Note: Kandinsky is generally considered to have had the neural condition called
synaesthesia wherein two senses cross over or combine. Not only was he
deeply influenced by music, but Kandinsky is believed to have seen it. Much
of his work is believed to be visual representations of music; what he
actually saw in his mind's eye when he heard musical sound. Wagner's
"Lohengrin" was an early influence upon Kandinsky's art.
Sometime later Kandinsky was closely aligned with the thinking of Viennese
composer, Arnold Schoenberg, whose music rejected thematic repetition.
Listen to some of Schoenberg's music and you'll see an immediate
correlation. Kandinsky's thinking was also aligned with Russian composer
Scriabin who looked for similarities between tone and color. Scriabin's
symphony "Prometheus: A Poem of Fire" is an example of this.
It's interesting that Kandinsky, who was also a trained musician, felt that
music was a superior language to painting. His goal was what the German
language refers to as "gesamtkuntswerk" (total work of art). from Getty
TeacherArtExchange post by Pam Stephens
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