Wassily Kandinsky

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Wassily Kandinsky

• Artist
• By Elizabeth Bure

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Wassily Kandinski was born on December 16, 1866
in Moscow, Russia. He was was a Russian painter,
printmaker, and art theorist. As a child,
Wassily was surrounded by music, and it later
influenced and inspired his art. Wassily went to
college at University of Moscow and chose to
study law and ecomonics. He was very
successful Wassily didnt start painting until he
was 30 years old!
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His Life in a Nutshell

• In 1896 he settled in Munich and studied at the
  Academy of Fine Arts, Munich. He went back to
  Moscow in 1914 after World War I started. He did
  not agree with the official theories on art in
  Moscow and returned to Germany in 1921.
• He taught at the German Bauhaus school of art and
  architecture from 1922 until the Nazis closed it
  in 1933.
• (Wassily Kandinsky was not the only artist
  affected by the War and the Nazi party. No one in
  Europe was untouched by the Nazi regime.)
• When the Nazis closed the Bauhaus school of art
  in 1922, he moved to France where he lived the
  rest of his life, and became a French citizen in
  1939. He died in 1944

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The Seed is planted!

• In 1895 Kandinsky attended a French Impressionist
  exhibition where he saw Monet's Haystacks at
  Giverny. He stated, "It was from the catalog I
  learned this was a haystack. I was upset I had
  not recognized it. I also thought the painter had
  no right to paint in such an imprecise fashion.
  Dimly I was aware too that the object did not
  appear in the picture..."
• Soon thereafter, at the age of thirty, Kandinsky
  left Moscow and went to Munich to study
  life-drawing, sketching and anatomy, regarded
  then as basic for an artistic education.

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Monets Haystacks
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But Wait..

• Ironically, Kandinsky's work moved in a direction
  that was of much greater abstraction than that
  which was pioneered by the Impressionists.
• It was not long before his talent surpassed the
  constraints of art school and he began exploring
  his own ideas of painting
• "I applied streaks and blobs of colors onto the
  canvas with a palette knife and I made them sing
  with all the intensity I could..."
• Now considered to be the founder of abstract art,
  his work was exhibited throughout Europe from
  1903 onwards, and often caused controversy among
  the public, the art critics, and his
  contemporaries.

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KANDINSKYS ABSTRACTION
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The Blue Rider

• The Blue Rider was an art movement founded by
  Franz Marc and Wassily Kandinsky and named after
  this painting, and also Marcs love of horses and
  Kandinskys love of the color BLUE!
• It lasted from 1911-1914 when it was interrupted
  by the outbreak of the First World War.

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The mission of Blue Rider

• Within the group, artistic approaches and aims
  varied from artist to artist however, the
  artists shared a common desire to express
  spiritual truths through their art.
• They believed in the promotion of modern art the
  connection between visual art and music the
  spiritual and symbolic associations of colour
  and a spontaneous, intuitive approach to
  painting.
• Der Blaue Reiter organized exhibitions in 1911
  and 1912 that toured Germany. They also published
  an almanac featuring contemporary, primitive and
  folk art, along with children's paintings.

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Yellow, Red, and Blue
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Music and ART

• Wassily Kandinsky was one of the first creators
  of pure abstraction in modern painting.
• Kandinsky, himself an accomplished musician, once
  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 or another, to cause vibrations
  in the soul. The concept that color and musical
  harmony are linked has a long history, intriguing
  scientists such as Sir Isaac Newton. Kandinsky
  used color in a highly theoretical way
  associating tone with timbre (the sound's
  character), hue with pitch, and saturation with
  the volume of sound. He even claimed that when he
  saw color he heard music.

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• In his own words, "Composition VII" was the most
  complex piece he ever painted

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• His parents played the piano and the zither and
  Kandinsky himself learned the piano and cello at
  an early age. The influence of music in his
  paintings cannot be overstated, down to the names
  of his paintings Improvisations, Impressions, and
  Compositions.

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I like this one!
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And this one
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Black LINES
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Improvisation 28
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Emulating Kandinsky

• Because Wassily Kandinsky linked music and art,
  and believed that art should be spontaneous and
  intuitive, I am going to create a painting to
  music.
• I will choose the song Loro by Pinback.
• I wish I could play this beautiful emotional song
  for Wassily.
• I would also like to play him the song Desagogate
  by Quetzal. Hed paint a picture using every
  color of the rainbow with black lines while he
  listened to it!

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Online Sources

• Wikipedia
• http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wassily_Kandinsky
• Artcyclopedia
• http//www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/kandinsky_was
  sily.html
• World Wide Art Resources
• http//www.wwar.com/masters/k/kandinsky-wassily.ht
  ml
• WebMuseum, Paris
• http//www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/kandinsky/
• The Art Institute of Chicago
• http//www.artic.edu/