Wassily kandinsky (василиккандинскии, Gregorian calendar 1866. He also founded a short but influential art group-"Blue Knight" with others. Kandinsky's paintings sold for nearly15 million dollars. Solomon guggenheim museum bilbao is one of the biggest collectors of Kandinsky's works.
Wassily kandinsky is one of the great figures of modern art and the founder of modern abstract art theory and practice. He wrote "On the Spirit of Art" at 19 1 1, "On Form" at 19 12, and "Point, Line and Surface" at 1923.
Chinese name: wassily kandinsky.
mbth:василикандински。
Nationality: Russia
Place of birth: Russia
Date of birth:1866 65438+February 65438+June.
Date of death:1944 65438+February 65438+March.
Occupation: painter and art theorist
Graduate School: Moscow University
Main achievement: one of the great figures of modern art.
Representative works: The Artist's Self-cultivation, etc.
Gender: male
Early experience
Before Kandinsky 19 14
Kandinsky 1866 was born in an intellectual family in Moscow and received a perfect education in a good family environment. In middle school, he not only got excellent grades, but also was an excellent amateur cellist and painter. After studying law and economics at Moscow University, I still maintain my interest in painting. From 65438 to 0889, he went to vologda to investigate and study the national history and folk customs, and was widely exposed to Russian folk paintings and decorative arts. He was deeply impressed by its exaggerated and unreal expression and strong colors. 1893 graduated from the university with a doctorate and taught in the university. At the age of thirty, he gave up his position as a law professor in order to study painting. When he arrived in Munich, he was immediately attracted by the atmosphere of Art Nouveau which pervaded the city. 1900 graduated from Munich Academy of Fine Arts and became a professional painter. From 65438 to 0903, he began a trip to Europe and North Africa, and inspected the development of modern art movements in various countries on the spot, which lasted for four years and deepened his comprehensive understanding of European culture. From 65438 to 0908, Kandinsky settled in Munich and began his professional artistic career.
From 65438 to 0909, Kandinsky joined the German expressionist society "Munich New Artists Association" and served as the first chairman. The following year, he completed the first important theoretical work on abstract art, On the Spirit of Art, and created the first abstract work, Improvisation. During this period, Kandinsky's paintings about non-objective objects or paintings without practical themes are budding.
19 1 1 year, Kandinsky and Marquez both quit the Munich New Artists Association, formed the "Young Knight School" and published their own publication "Young Knight Yearbook".
In the book On the Spirit of Art published by 19 12, Kandinsky sorted out some thoughts that hovered in his mind when he was studying in Russia. A serious student always spends a lot of time on the relationship between art and music. In Monet's paintings, he first noticed the dematerialization of objects and attracted him constantly. Through exhibitions in Munich and constant travel, he learned more revolutionary new discoveries of neo-impressionism, symbolism, fauvism and cubism. The progress of physical science shattered his belief in the tangible world. At the same time, it also strengthens the confidence that art must care about spiritual issues rather than material issues. Although Kandinsky has a strong interest in science and law, he is still attracted by general theology, divinity and metaphysics. In his thought kingdom, there is always a mysterious core, which he sometimes attributed to something in Russia. Therefore, this mysticism, this feeling of inner creative power, is a spiritual product rather than the product of external scenes or craftsmanship. It can bring people to an art with no theme at all, unless only colors, lines and their relationships are used to form the theme. He wrote: "Strictly speaking, the harmony between color and form must be based on the principle of touching the human soul."
Kandinsky's early paintings have gone through impressionism, Art Nouveau decoration and other stages, but all of them are characterized by the feeling of color, and many of them are characterized by narrative fairy tales. These fairy tales are the nostalgia of Russian folk stories and myths that he was interested in in in his early years. After impressionism, we engage in the patterns and colors of new impressionism, and then dabble in more free and unrestrained wildness. Blue Mountain No.84 is a romantic stippling work. He used several large, flat-painted mountain-shaped and tree-shaped outlines to organize color points. The outline of the knight is clear, and the front forms a touching pattern. The technical features can be traced back to the higher color space and Seurat's pointillism; Its decorative scheme is reminiscent of the Art Nouveau movement. From this painting to composition, No.2 is only a small step. In Composition No.2, riders and other figures have become colorful patterns of dots or lines. The space of the picture is lined with quivering and fast-moving color blocks, and the story is submerged in this abstract pattern. At this time, Kandinsky, who has absorbed the significance of the color organization of Fauvism, began to add titles to his music to express his intentions, such as "composition", "improvisation" and "lyric". 19 10 or so, he painted a rough and turbulent watercolor painting with alternating colors and line shapes. Since this painting, all descriptive and associative elements seem to have disappeared, which is probably the first example of abstract expressionism. Whether this painting is Kandinsky's first completely abstract painting seems to be never answered. However, there is no doubt that he gave this type of painting a kind of motivation. He used the nature similar to music and discovered the theme of abstract expressionism, that is, the artist's intention should show a spiritual reaction or decision through lines and colors, space and movement, rather than referring to anything that can be seen in nature.
After his first foray into abstraction, Kandinsky continued to stick to this direction, but in his work Bow and BlackNo. 19 12, the specific theme and visual association disappeared. The violent conflict and tension shown in this painting is the conflict and tension of color and shape, just like the conflict and tension of lines in some Star Wars. Starting from this point, the artist continued to create a series of abstract masterpieces of Expressionism painting. After 19 13, due to the depression of World War I, he occasionally came back to re-introduce objective objects, such as impromptu 3 1, (cannon) 16 1, but such objects became less and less. In fact, this kind of gun does not need to express the feeling of explosion injury with the abstract element of picture. Here is a brief introduction to his large-scale seasonal series "Autumn" and "Winter" 19 14. Autumn colors are more intense and appropriate. "Winter" is more vivid in the accelerated movement and rotation of small pieces of color, staggered and splashed lines. Through the expressive techniques and even the descriptive power of abstract techniques, the artist reveals some characteristics of this season.
19 14 years, the war forced kandinsky to return to Russia, and soon after, another long and productive career began. Looking back at the works of other members of 19 14 Green Knight School, we can see that it is not the same style principle that brings the relevant people together, but a loose group formed by a group of young artists out of their enthusiasm for new exploration and unified opposing goals. In addition to personal friendship, their roots and mature minds, as well as Kandinsky's personality, have given this organization cohesion and direction. The yearbook "Green Knight" edited by Kandinsky and Mark was published in 19 12, which became a forum for this school of views. The Yearbook discusses Picasso and Matisse's exploration in Paris in detail, and records the goals and conflicts of this new German art group. In the creation of new culture and new attitude towards painting, its importance lies in the influence of various primitive and naive arts.
Middle-aged activities
Kandinsky is in Russia (1914—1921)
It was Kandinsky who spread Russia's exploration of abstraction and composition to the west. Due to the outbreak of war, Kandinsky was forced to leave Germany and returned to Russia in 19 14. After the Russian Revolution, 19 18 was appointed as a professor of Moscow Academy of Fine Arts, and 19 19 helped to establish the Russian Museum. 1920 was hired as a professor at Moscow University and held an exhibition of his personal works sponsored by the government in Moscow. The next year, the good climate for exploring modern art changed. Kandinsky tried to systematically study the language of modern plastic arts through the cooperation of plastic artists, writers and musicians, with a view to establishing a set of theoretical principles that can be applied to various artistic creations. However, his theoretical exploration was resisted by "production artists" from the constructivist camp. 192 1 at the beginning of the year, the artists who hold the view of "making art" in the constitutionalism finally gained the upper hand, and they formed a new creative society-"producers' alliance", which was held in192165438+1October. In this case, Kandinsky had to return to Western Europe and continue his research and creation of abstract art in a foreign country far from Russia. 192 1 At the end of the year, Kandinsky returned to Germany and was soon appointed as the newly established Bauhaus professor of Weimar, and later became the vice president.
Until 1920, Kandinsky continued to paint in a free and abstract way, which he initiated in about 19 10. He traced back to his past years in Moscow and began to make regular shapes, straight lines or geometric curves in some paintings. 192 1 year, he continued to engage in geometric patterns and entered another important stage of his life. Undoubtedly, Kandinsky was influenced by the geometric abstraction and constructivism of Malevich and Rodchenko. Although it has changed from a free form to a regular and rigid colorful shape, Kandinsky's paintings still maintain a strong sense of rhythm, keeping the abstract form in constant conflict. "White Line, No.232" is a transitional work, and the treatment of main color blocks is relatively loose. These color blocks are emphasized by strong linear patterns and regular curved color blocks, which makes the work have a light pleasure controlled by geometric figures. Circle is a central theme, which he has always liked since the mid-1920s. Perhaps this is a theme that can be used to express the interaction between space and galaxies, and it has enduring charm.
Old age life
192 1 Kandinsky years later
192 1 year, kandinsky returned to Germany and joined Bauhaus college in 1922. A few years ago, under the influence of Russian supremacism and constructivism, his paintings gradually changed from free abstraction to abstract form. This change can be seen in three paintings: 19 19, 1920, 1923. Gray, 222 is almost completely free and non-geometric. White line, No.232 shows some regular shapes, straight lines and some curved shapes with clear edges. In the painting "247 emphasizes the corner", all this is replaced by a regular hard outline.
This is not to say that Kandinsky abandoned the expressionist foundation of his early style after 192 1 year, and his theism still exists. Even in the most rigid period of geometry, his paintings are dynamic in structure, with triangles, circles, lines and unstable diagonals flashing each other. Continue to use variegated blocks in contrast to geometric lines. Occasionally, the mood becomes calm: in several circles at No.323, transparent round color blocks pass by quietly in a black space.
During this period, Kandinsky emphasized his passion for abstract expression. He still thinks his paintings are romantic. He wrote: "The purpose and content of art is romanticism. If we understand this concept in isolation and matter-of-fact, then we mistakenly think that circles are widely used in my works. The romanticism to appear here is a piece of ice, and this ice is burning with flames. "
Kandinsky is the most influential member of Bauhaus College, not only because he is a great artist, a pioneer of modern abstraction and a talented teacher who brought first-hand knowledge of Russian abstract art revolution, but also because he can express his visual and theoretical concepts systematically, clearly and accurately. 1926 published the composition tutorial "Point, Line and Surface". In this book, Kandinsky wants to give an absolute definition to the elements of works of art and their relationships. This relationship refers to the relationship between one element and another, as well as the overall relationship. His exquisite and romantic artistic skills are very obvious here.
The relationship between Kandinsky and Bauhaus College ended in 1933. He created many paintings, which are full of conflicts between the meaning and form of the theme, but he never left the abstract means. In the years when Bauhaus College was about to be dissolved, Kandinsky's paintings reappeared in a lyrical and colorful way, replacing architectural techniques. The shape in Lamp Room 559 is still geometry. They are arranged in layers, and their vertical and horizontal styles are even more than before. Soft colors are only weakened colors; Precisely carved shapes are surrounded by light wheels that diffuse light and color. Therefore, the whole effect is full of quiet and romantic interest. Some shapes are reminiscent of hieroglyphics of Egypt or American Indians, conveying an exotic atmosphere. At that time, Kandinsky already knew about the surrealist activities in the1920s. In this painting and the paintings he created after moving to France in 1933, people feel the nature similar to abstract surrealism. Colored shapes show their vitality and fight like a game like a microbe or a cosmic monster.
1at the end of 933, kandinsky settled in Paris until his death. For him, the last period was rich and colorful, whether it was the number of works or the development of ideas and forms. In a word, he continues to pursue freer and more biological shapes and colors, and occasionally creates the texture of biological forms, but this texture is more colorful than that of his previous abstract expressionist works. The shapes are still sharp, but they seem to emerge from the fantasy of the microscopic world. In Composition 9 of No.626, he used two identical triangles, one straight and the other inverted, to cut off both ends of the picture and establish the color basis of a mathematical model. The parallelogram between two triangles is divided into four smaller parallelograms of the same size. In this well-defined but colorful background, he scattered some small bodies that looked like dancing wildly: circles, squares with chessboard shapes, long and narrow rectangles and amoeba patterns. Arranging small and free shapes on large geometric patterns has always been his interest in those years. Sometimes the background is several large alternating vertical rectangles, and sometimes it is a black and white chessboard. However, this contrast between freedom and constraint comes from his lifelong concern about the relationship between intuitive expression and intentional abstract form.
Personal abstract fantasy is the main starting point of his later years. Sometimes he randomly spreads small and free shapes on a uniform color background; But at other times, he returned to an arrangement with as few elements as possible, as if to purify his technology. Kandinsky's last paintings show that one of the most outstanding and influential talents in modern art has matured.
1944 was caught in the Seine River in France.
Theoretical works
1909
Yellow voice
19 12 years
Spirit in art
On the question of form
Stage composition
19 13 years
Painting as a pure art
1923
Basic elements of form
Color courses and research courses
On abstract stage synthesis
1926
Points, lines and faces
Dance Curve: On Parega's Dance
The Value of Painting Theory Course
1928
Analysis of the Basic Elements of Painting
Art teaching
1938
On figurative art
Among them, the masterpiece of modern art and the apocalypse "The Cultivation of Artists" include "Spirit in Art" and "Point, Line and Surface".