Week 3 Further Research - Wassily Kandinsky
Wassily Kandinsky was a Russian painter and art theorist and he is considered one of western art's forefathers of abstraction. He took painting studies in his 30s after completing his studies for law and economics. He was fascinated by colours, colour symbolism, and psychology from a young age and he traveled to the "Vologda region north of Moscow" as a part of an "ethnographic" research group, where the artworks and buildings he found there with shimmering and bright colours on dark backgrounds made him feel like he was moving in a painting, which inspired him in his early work.
His abstract work developed over time through his intense thinking on his artistic experiences, "inner beauty", "fervor of spirit" and "spiritual desire inner necessity" were central aspects of his art. His interest in abstraction started when one day he went home to find one of his paintings hanging upside down which he stared at for some time. He was also impressed by the "powerful sense of colour" in a painting exhibition of Monet which he also described the experience as "the painting not only gripped me but impressed itself ineradicably on my memory. Painting took on a fairy-tale power and splendour". He was also influenced by Richard Wegner's "Lohengrin" and Madame Blavatsky who was an exponent of theosophy. He was interested in theosophy, which supports that creation is a geometric sequence that starts with a single point and is expressed by a series of circles, triangles, and squares. Two of his books reflect this "theosophical tenet", and he was visually influenced by John Varley's illustrations in "Thought-Forms.
His painting began to place more emphasis on geometrical elements, more importantly, circles, half-circles, straight lines, and curves. His early painting reflected an expressionism style, and although he tried out different other artistic styles he ended up moving towards abstractionism by exploring spirituality in art.
His "object-free" paintings of abstraction and expressionism give great inspiration in structures. Some of his paintings such as "On White II" (1923), "yellow, red, blue" (1925), and more helped me with my visual idea for my project which is expressionism themed. His geometric abstraction work can influence on creating futuristic and abstract shapes for architecture. By looking at these works i had a clearer vision of how I can develop the structure I wanted for my building to be sustainable and possible to create the expressionism part of the exterior design.
References:
- Wassily Kandinsky (2008-23) (online) available from: https://www.wassilykandinsky.net/ (accessed on 23 January)
- Tate (no date) (online) available from: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/wassily-kandinsky-1382 (accessed on 23 January)
- The artstory (2023) (online) available from: https://www.theartstory.org/artist/kandinsky-wassily/ (accessed 23 January)
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You found out some interesting things about Kandinsky - would like to hear more about his use of shape and how it relates to what you are doing for this project - REMEMBER - everything is about your project from now on!
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