81-460: Der Blaue Reiter ( The Blue Rider ) was a group of artists and a designation by Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc for their exhibition and publication activities, in which both artists acted as sole editors in the almanac of the same name (first published in mid-May 1912). The editorial team organized two exhibitions in Munich in 1911 and 1912 to demonstrate their art-theoretical ideas based on
162-453: A "kind of almanac" which could be called Die Kette ( The Chain ). On 19 June, he pitched his idea to Marc and won him over by offering him the co-editing of the book. The name of the movement is the title of a painting that Kandinsky created in 1903, but it is unclear whether it is the origin of the name of the movement as Professor Klaus Lankheit learned that the title of the painting had been overwritten. Kandinsky wrote 20 years later that
243-476: A Nazi raid on the Bauhaus in the 1930s resulted in the confiscation of Kandinsky's first three Compositions . They were displayed in the state-sponsored Degenerate Art exhibition and were then destroyed (along with works by Paul Klee , Franz Marc and other modern artists). Fascinated by Christian eschatology and the perception of a coming New Age, a common theme among Kandinsky's first seven Compositions
324-503: A new group, The Blue Rider ( Der Blaue Reiter ) with like-minded artists such as August Macke , Franz Marc , Albert Bloch , and Gabriele Münter . The group released an almanac ( The Blue Rider Almanac ) and held two exhibits. More of each were planned, but the outbreak of World War I in 1914 ended these plans and sent Kandinsky back to Russia via Switzerland and Sweden. His writing in The Blue Rider Almanac and
405-479: A particularly active time for German art: he saw the development of the main German Expressionist movements as well as the arrival of the successive avant-garde movements which were forming in the rest of Europe. As an artist of his time, Macke knew how to integrate into his painting the elements of the avant-garde which most interested him. Like his friend Franz Marc and Otto Soltau , he was one of
486-615: A program based on form and colour analysis; he also helped organize the Institute of Artistic Culture in Moscow (of which he was its first director). His spiritual, expressionistic view of art was ultimately rejected by the radical members of the institute as too individualistic and bourgeois. In 1921, Kandinsky was invited to go to Germany to attend the Bauhaus of Weimar by its founder, architect Walter Gropius . In May 1922, he attended
567-404: A result of their encounters with Cubist , Fauvist and Rayonist ideas, they moved towards abstraction. 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. In 1913, they exhibited in the first German Herbstsalon. The group was disrupted by the outbreak of
648-757: A second edition of the original was printed in 1914, again by Piper. The contents of the Almanac included: The art reproduced in the Almanac marked a dramatic turn away from a Eurocentric and conventional orientation. The selection was dominated by primitive, folk and children's art, with pieces from the South Pacific and Africa, Japanese drawings, medieval German woodcuts and sculpture, Egyptian puppets, Russian folk art, and Bavarian religious art painted on glass. The five works by Van Gogh , Cézanne , and Gauguin were outnumbered by seven from Henri Rousseau and thirteen from child artists. On December 18, 1911,
729-658: A stage and costume designer at the Schauspielhaus Düsseldorf , and visited northern Italy (1905) and Netherlands, Belgium and Britain (1906). Thereafter Macke lived most of his creative life in Bonn , with the exception of a few periods spent at Lake Thun in Switzerland and various trips to Paris, Italy, the Netherlands and Tunisia . In Paris, where he traveled for the first time in 1907, Macke saw
810-559: A starting point, improvisations and compositions depict images emergent from the unconscious, though composition is developed from a more formal point of view. After graduating in 1892, Kandinsky married his cousin, Anja Chimiakina, and became a lecturer in Jurisprudence at the University of Moscow . In the summer of 1902, Kandinsky invited Gabriele Münter to join him at his summer painting classes just south of Munich in
891-914: A summerhouse in the small Bavarian town of Murnau and the couple happily entertained colleagues there. The property is still known as Russenhaus and she would later use the basement to hide many works (by Kandinsky and others) from the Nazis . Upon returning to Munich, Kandinsky founded the Neue Kunstler Vereinigung (New Artists' Association) in 1909. He returned to Moscow in 1914 when the first World War broke out. The relationship between Kandinsky and Münter worsened due to mutual tensions and disappointments over his lack of commitment to marriage. Their relationship formally ended in 1916 in Stockholm. In 1916, he met Nina Nikolaevna Andreevskaya (1899–1980), whom he married on 11 February 1917 when she
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#1732787066234972-1024: A unity of sensation. Driven by the Christian faith and the inner necessity of an artist, his paintings have the ambiguity of the form rendered in a variety of colours as well as resistance against conventional aesthetic values of the art world. His signature or individual style can be further defined and divided into three categories over the course of his art career: Impressions (representational element), Improvisations (spontaneous emotional reaction) and Compositions (ultimate works of art). As Kandinsky started moving away from his early inspiration from Impressionism, his paintings became more vibrant, pictographic and expressive with more sharp shapes and clear linear qualities. But eventually, Kandinsky went further, rejecting pictorial representation with more synesthetic swirling hurricanes of colours and shapes, eliminating traditional references to depth and laying out bare and abstracted glyphs; however, what remained consistent
1053-548: A universal correspondence of forms, colors and musical sounds. In 1928, the stage production premiered at a theater in Dessau. In 2015, the original designs of the stage elements were animated with modern video technology and synchronized with the music according to the preparatory notes of Kandinsky and the director's script of Felix Klee. In another episode with Münter during the Bavarian abstract expressionist years, Kandinsky
1134-491: A vertical yellow rectangle, an inclined red cross and a large dark blue circle; a multitude of straight (or sinuous) black lines, circular arcs, monochromatic circles and scattered, coloured checker-boards contribute to its delicate complexity. This simple visual identification of forms and the main coloured masses present on the canvas is only a first approach to the inner reality of the work, whose appreciation necessitates deeper observation—not only of forms and colours involved in
1215-598: Is a museum dedicated to August Macke founded in 1991. It is located in Macke's former home in Bonn , where he lived from 1911 to 1914. At a 1997 Christie's auction, Macke's The Couple at a Garden Table (1914) was sold for £2 million. Market in Tunis (1914) sold for £2.86 million ($ 4.1 million) in 2000. Consigned by the estate of Ernst Beyeler , the artist's In the Bazar (1914) was auctioned for £3.96 million – then four and
1296-421: Is muted while the leaves in the trees, the town, and the reflections in the river glisten with spots of colour and brightness. This work demonstrates the influence of pointillism in the way the depth of field is collapsed into a flat, luminescent surface. Fauvism is also apparent in these early works. Colours are used to express Kandinsky's experience of subject matter, not to describe objective nature. Perhaps
1377-530: Is not exceptional in that regard when compared with contemporary painters, but it shows the direction Kandinsky would take only a few years later. From 1906 to 1908, Kandinsky spent a great deal of time travelling across Europe (he was an associate of the Blue Rose symbolist group of Moscow) until he settled in the small Bavarian town of Murnau . In 1908, he bought a copy of Thought-Forms by Annie Besant and Charles Webster Leadbeater . In 1909, he joined
1458-435: Is not the most beautiful hour. It is only the final chord of a symphony that takes every colour to the zenith of life that, like the fortissimo of a great orchestra, is both compelled and allowed by Moscow to ring out. From 1918 to 1921, Kandinsky was involved in the cultural politics of Russia and collaborated in art education and museum reform. He painted little during this period, but devoted his time to artistic teaching with
1539-538: Is something that anyone can do—not scientific/objective observations, but inner/subjective ones, referred to by French philosopher Michel Henry as "absolute subjectivity" or the "absolute phenomenological life ". Published in Munich in 1911, Kandinsky's text Über das Geistige in der Kunst ( Concerning the spiritual in art ) defines three types of painting: impressions , improvisations and compositions . While impressions are based on an external reality that serves as
1620-591: Is the apocalypse (the end of the world as we know it). Writing of the "artist as prophet" in his book, Concerning the Spiritual in Art , Kandinsky created paintings in the years immediately preceding World War I showing a coming cataclysm which would alter individual and social reality. Having a devout belief in Orthodox Christianity , Kandinsky drew upon the biblical stories of Noah's Ark , Jonah and
1701-493: The First World War in 1914. Franz Marc and August Macke were killed in combat. Wassily Kandinsky returned to Russia, and Marianne von Werefkin and Alexej von Jawlensky fled to Switzerland. There were also differences in opinion within the group. As a result, Der Blaue Reiter was short-lived, lasting for only three years from 1911 to 1914. In 1923, Kandinsky , Feininger , Klee and Alexej von Jawlensky formed
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#17327870662341782-738: The First exhibition of the editorial board of Der Blaue Reiter ( Erste Ausstellung der Redaktion Der Blaue Reiter ) opened at the Heinrich Thannhauser's Moderne Galerie in Munich, running through the first days of 1912. 43 works by 14 artists were shown: paintings by Henri Rousseau , Albert Bloch , David Burliuk , Wladimir Burliuk , Heinrich Campendonk , Robert Delaunay , Elisabeth Epstein , Eugen von Kahler , Wassily Kandinsky , August Macke , Franz Marc , Gabriele Münter , Jean Bloé Niestlé and Arnold Schoenberg , and an illustrated catalogue edited. From January 1912 through July 1914,
1863-595: The International Congress of Progressive Artists and signed the "Founding Proclamation of the Union of Progressive International Artists". Kandinsky taught the basic design class for beginners and the course on advanced theory at the Bauhaus ; he also conducted painting classes and a workshop in which he augmented his colour theory with new elements of form psychology. The development of his works on forms study, particularly on points and line forms, led to
1944-526: The Munich Academy where his teachers would eventually include Franz von Stuck . He was not immediately granted admission and began learning art on his own. That same year, before leaving Moscow, he saw an exhibit of paintings by Monet . He was particularly taken with the impressionistic style of Haystacks ; this, to him, had a powerful sense of colour almost independent of the objects themselves. Later, he would write about this experience: That it
2025-507: The Theosophical Society . The Blue Mountain (1908–1909) was painted at this time, demonstrating his trend toward abstraction. A mountain of blue is flanked by two broad trees, one yellow and one red. A procession, with three riders and several others, crosses at the bottom. The faces, clothing, and saddles of the riders are each a single color, and neither they nor the walking figures display any real detail. The flat planes and
2106-587: The Allied Artists' Exhibition (organised by Frank Rutter ) at London's Royal Albert Hall . This resulted in his work being singled out for praise in a review of that show by the artist Spencer Frederick Gore in The Art News . Sadleir's interest in Kandinsky also led to Kandinsky's first works entering a British art collection; Sadleir's father, Michael Sadler , acquired several wood-prints and
2187-496: The Alps. She accepted the offer and their relationship became more personal than professional. Art school, usually considered difficult, was easy for Kandinsky. It was during this time that he began to emerge as an art theorist as well as a painter. The number of his existing paintings increased at the beginning of the 20th century; much remains of the landscapes and towns he painted, using broad swaths of colour and recognisable forms. For
2268-613: The Alps. She accepted the offer and their relationship became more personal than professional. In 1911, the German expressionist painter was one of several artists joining Kandinsky in his Blue Rider ( Der Blaue Reiter ) group, which ended with the onset of World War I. Kandinsky and Münter became engaged in the summer of 1903 while he was still married to Anja and travelled extensively through Europe, Russia and North Africa until 1908. He separated from Anja in 1911. From 1906 to 1908, Kandinsky travelled across Europe. In 1909, Münter bought
2349-549: The Bauhaus left Weimar for Dessau in 1925. Following a Nazi smear campaign, the Bauhaus left Dessau in 1932 for Berlin , where it remained until its dissolution in July 1933. Kandinsky then left Germany, settling in Paris. Living in an apartment in Paris, Kandinsky created his work in a living-room studio. Biomorphic forms with supple, non-geometric outlines appear in his paintings—forms which suggest microscopic organisms but express
2430-776: The English-speaking world. As early as 1912, On the Spiritual in Art was reviewed by Michael Sadleir in the London-based Art News. Interest in Kandinsky grew quickly when Sadleir published an English translation of On the Spiritual in Art in 1914. Extracts from the book were published that year in Percy Wyndham Lewis 's periodical Blast , and Alfred Orage 's weekly cultural newspaper The New Age . Kandinsky had received some notice earlier in Britain, however; in 1910, he participated in
2511-429: The Spiritual in Art (see below), Kandinsky felt that an authentic artist creating art from "an internal necessity" inhabits the tip of an upward-moving pyramid. This progressing pyramid is penetrating and proceeding into the future. What was odd or inconceivable yesterday is commonplace today; what is avant garde today (and understood only by the few) is common knowledge tomorrow. The modern artist–prophet stands alone at
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2592-541: The abstract painting Fragment for Composition VII in 1913 following a visit by father and son to meet Kandinsky in Munich that year. These works were displayed in Leeds , either in the university or the premises of the Leeds Arts Club , between 1913 and 1923. The sun melts all of Moscow down to a single spot that, like a mad tuba, starts all of the heart and all of the soul vibrating. But no, this uniformity of red
2673-547: The affiliated artists is assigned to German Expressionism . The forerunner of The Blue Rider was the Neue Künstlervereinigung München (N.K.V.M: New Artists' Association Munich), instigated by Marianne von Werefkin , Alexej von Jawlensky , Adolf Erbslöh and German entrepreneur, art collector, aviation pioneer and musician Oscar Wittenstein [ de ] . The N.K.V.M was co-founded in 1909 and Kandinsky (as its first chairman) organized
2754-670: The age of 30. In 1896, Kandinsky settled in Munich, studying first at Anton Ažbe 's private school and then at the Academy of Fine Arts . He returned to Moscow in 1914 after the outbreak of World War I. Following the Russian Revolution , Kandinsky "became an insider in the cultural administration of Anatoly Lunacharsky " and helped establish the Museum of the Culture of Painting. However, by then, "his spiritual outlook...
2835-453: The apex of the pyramid, making new discoveries and ushering in tomorrow's reality. Kandinsky was aware of recent scientific developments and the advances of modern artists who had contributed to radically new ways of seeing and experiencing the world. Composition IV and later paintings are primarily concerned with evoking a spiritual resonance in viewer and artist. As in his painting of the apocalypse by water ( Composition VI ), Kandinsky puts
2916-524: The artist's inner life. Kandinsky used original colour compositions, evoking Slavic popular art. He also occasionally mixed sand with paint to give a granular, rustic texture to his paintings. This period corresponds to a synthesis of Kandinsky's previous work in which he used all elements, enriching them. In 1936 and 1939, he painted his final two major compositions, the type of elaborate canvases he had not produced for many years. Composition IX has highly contrasted, powerful diagonals whose central form gives
2997-521: 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 color; and a spontaneous, intuitive approach to painting. Members were interested in European medieval art and primitivism , as well as the contemporary, non-figurative art scene in France . As
3078-533: The boy were his father's drawings, the Japanese prints collected by his friend Thuar's father and the works of Arnold Böcklin which he saw on a visit to Basel in 1900. In 1904 Macke's father died, and in that year Macke enrolled at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf , under Adolf Maennchen (1904–1906). During this period he also took evening classes under Fritz Helmut Ehmke (1905), did some work as
3159-504: The circle, half-circle, the angle, straight lines and curves. This period was intensely productive. This freedom is characterised in his works by the treatment of planes rich in colours and gradations—as in Yellow – red – blue (1925), where Kandinsky illustrates his distance from the constructivism and suprematism movements influential at the time. The two-metre-wide (6 ft 7 in) Yellow – red – blue (1925) of several main forms:
3240-406: The communion between artist and viewer as being available to both the senses and the mind ( synesthesia ). Hearing tones and chords as he painted, Kandinsky theorised that (for example), yellow is the colour of middle C on a brassy trumpet; black is the colour of closure, and the end of things; and that combinations of colours produce vibrational frequencies, akin to chords played on a piano. In 1871
3321-711: The contours also are indicative of Fauvist influence. The broad use of color in The Blue Mountain illustrates Kandinsky's inclination toward an art in which colour is presented independently of form, and in which each color is given equal attention. The composition is more planar; the painting is divided into four sections: the sky, the red tree, the yellow tree, and the blue mountain with the three riders. Kandinsky's paintings from this period are large, expressive coloured masses evaluated independently from forms and lines; these serve no longer to delimit them, but overlap freely to form paintings of extraordinary force. Music
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3402-813: The exhibition toured Europe with venues in Cologne, Berlin, Bremen, Hagen, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Budapest, Oslo, Helsinki, Trondheim and Göteborg. From February 12 through April 2, 1912, the Second exhibition of the editorial board of Der Blaue Reiter ( Zweite Ausstellung der Redaktion Der Blaue Reiter ) showed works in black-and-white at the New Art Gallery of Hans Goltz (Neue Kunst Hans Goltz) in Munich. The artists of Der Blaue Reiter also participated in these other exhibitions: Wassily Kandinsky Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky (16 December [ O.S. 4 December] 1866 – 13 December 1944)
3483-440: The exhibitions of 1909 and 1910. Even before the first exhibition, Kandinsky introduced the so-called "four square meter clause" into the statutes of the N.K.V.M due to a difference of opinion with the painter Charles Johann Palmié ; this clause would give Kandinsky the lever to leave the N.K.V.M in 1911. In 1911, Palmié allowed Kandinsky and Marc to leave the association and organize the first Blue Rider exhibition. The Blue Rider
3564-538: The family settled at Cologne, where Macke was educated at the Kreuzgymnasium (1897–1900) and became a friend of Hans Thuar, who also became an artist. In 1900, when he was thirteen, the family moved to Bonn, where Macke studied at the Realgymnasium and became a friend of Walter Gerhardt and Gerhardt's sister, Elisabeth , whom he married a few years later. The first artistic works to make an impression on
3645-479: The form is expressed by a descending series of circles, triangles, and squares. Kandinsky's book Concerning the Spiritual in Art (1910) and Point and Line to Plane (1926) echoed this theosophical tenet. Illustrations by John Varley in Thought-Forms (1901) influenced him visually. In the summer of 1902, Kandinsky invited Gabriele Münter to join him at his summer painting classes just south of Munich in
3726-642: The group Die Blaue Vier ( The Blue Four ) at the instigation of painter and art dealer Galka Scheyer . Scheyer organized Blue Four exhibitions in the United States from 1924 onward. An extensive collection of paintings by Der Blaue Reiter is exhibited in the Städtische Galerie in the Lenbachhaus in Munich. Conceived in June 1911, Der Blaue Reiter Almanach ( The Blue Rider Almanac )
3807-419: The horse has an unnatural gait (which Kandinsky must have known) . This intentional disjunction, allowing viewers to participate in the creation of the artwork, became an increasingly conscious technique used by Kandinsky in subsequent years; it culminated in the abstract works of the 1911–1914 period. In The Blue Rider , Kandinsky shows the rider more as a series of colours than in specific detail. This painting
3888-501: The impact of brightly coloured forms while his forms were often biomorphic approaches to bring surrealism in his art. Kandinsky's analyses on forms and colours result not from simple, arbitrary idea-associations but from the painter's inner experience. He spent years creating abstract/sensorially rich paintings, working with form and colour, tirelessly observing his own paintings (along with those of other artists) and noting their effects on his sense of colour. This subjective experience
3969-594: The impression of an embryo in the womb. Small squares of colours and coloured bands stand out against the black background of Composition X as star fragments (or filaments ), while enigmatic hieroglyphs with pastel tones cover a large maroon mass which seems to float in the upper-left corner of the canvas. In Kandinsky's work, some characteristics are obvious, while certain touches are more discreet and veiled; they reveal themselves only progressively to those who deepen their connection with his work. He intended his forms (which he subtly harmonised and placed) to resonate with
4050-587: The manner for which he would become noted, writing "Colour is the keyboard, the eyes are the harmony, the soul is the piano with many strings. The artist is the hand which plays, touching one key or another, to cause vibrations in the soul". Kandinsky was also the uncle of Russian-French philosopher Alexandre Kojève (1902–1968). Kandinsky's creation of abstract work followed a long period of development and maturation of intense thought based on his artistic experiences. He called this devotion to inner beauty , fervor of spirit and spiritual desire "inner necessity"; it
4131-436: The most important of his paintings from the first decade of the 1900s was The Blue Rider (1903), which shows a small cloaked figure on a speeding horse rushing through a rocky meadow. The rider's cloak is medium blue, which casts a darker-blue shadow. In the foreground are more amorphous blue shadows, the counterparts of the fall trees in the background. The blue rider in the painting is prominent (but not clearly defined), and
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#17327870662344212-406: The most part, however, Kandinsky's paintings did not feature any human figures; an exception is Sunday, Old Russia (1904), in which Kandinsky recreates a highly colourful (and fanciful) view of peasants and nobles in front of the walls of a town. Couple on Horseback (1907) depicts a man on horseback, holding a woman as they ride past a Russian town with luminous walls across a blue river. The horse
4293-663: The mystical and symbolic interests of Der Blaue Reiter . Macke's meeting with Robert Delaunay in Paris in 1912 was to be a sort of revelation for him. Delaunay's chromatic Cubism , which Apollinaire had called Orphism , influenced Macke's art from that point onwards. His Shops Windows can be considered a personal interpretation of Delaunay's Windows, combined with the simultaneity of images found in Italian Futurism . The exotic atmosphere of Tunisia, where Macke traveled in April 1914 with Paul Klee and Louis Moilliet
4374-400: The name is derived from Marc's enthusiasm for horses and Kandinsky's love of riders, combined with a shared love of the color blue. For Kandinsky, blue was the color of spirituality; the darker the blue, the more it awakened human desire for the eternal (as he wrote in his 1911 book On the Spiritual in Art ). Within the group, artistic approaches and aims varied from artist to artist; however,
4455-535: The observer's soul. Writing that "music is the ultimate teacher", Kandinsky embarked upon the first seven of his ten Compositions . The first three survive only in black-and-white photographs taken by fellow artist and friend Gabriele Münter . Composition I (1910) was destroyed by a British air raid on the city of Braunschweig in Lower Saxony on the night of 14 October 1944. While studies, sketches, and improvisations exist (particularly of Composition II ),
4536-403: The painting but their relationship, their absolute and relative positions on the canvas and their harmony. Kandinsky was one of Die Blaue Vier ( The Blue Four ), which was a group that was formed in 1923 with Paul Klee , Lyonel Feininger and Alexej von Jawlensky at the instigation of Galka Scheyer , who promoted their work in the United States from 1924 onward. Due to right-wing hostility,
4617-404: The publication of his second theoretical book ( Point and Line to Plane ) in 1926. His examinations of the effects of forces on straight lines, leading to the contrasting tones of curved and angled lines, coincided with the research of Gestalt psychologists, whose work was also discussed at the Bauhaus. Geometrical elements took on increasing importance in both his teaching and painting—particularly
4698-431: The treatise "On the Spiritual in Art" (which was released in 1910) were both a defence and promotion of abstract art and an affirmation that all forms of art were equally capable of reaching a level of spirituality. He believed that colour could be used in a painting as something autonomous, apart from the visual description of an object or other form. These ideas had an almost-immediate international impact, particularly in
4779-486: The viewer in the situation of experiencing these epic myths by translating them into contemporary terms (with a sense of desperation, flurry, urgency, and confusion). This spiritual communion of viewer-painting-artist/prophet may be described within the limits of words and images. As the Der Blaue Reiter Almanac essays and theorising with composer Arnold Schoenberg indicate, Kandinsky also expressed
4860-552: The whale, Christ's resurrection , the four horsemen of the Apocalypse in the book of Revelation , Russian folktales and the common mythological experiences of death and rebirth. Never attempting to picture any one of these stories as a narrative, he used their veiled imagery as symbols of the archetypes of death–rebirth and destruction–creation he felt were imminent in the pre- World War I world. As he stated in Concerning
4941-817: The word uberflut ("deluge" or "flood") and focus on its sound rather than its meaning. Repeating this word like a mantra, Kandinsky painted and completed the monumental work in a three-day span. Wassily Kandinsky's art has a confluence of music and spirituality. With his appreciation for music of his times and kinesthetic disposition, Kandinsky's artworks have a marked style of expressionism in his early years. But he embraced all types of artistic styles of his times and his predecessors i.e. Art Nouveau (sinuous organic forms), Fauvism and Blaue Reiter (shocking colours), Surrealism (mystery) and Bauhaus ( constructivism ) only to move towards abstractionism as he explored spirituality in art. His object-free paintings display spiritual abstraction suggested by sounds and emotions through
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#17327870662345022-540: The work of the Impressionists , and shortly after he went to Berlin and spent a few months in Lovis Corinth 's studio. His style was formed within the mode of French Impressionism and Post-Impressionism and later went through a Fauve period. In 1909 he married Elisabeth Gerhardt. In 1910, through his friendship with Franz Marc , Macke met Kandinsky and for a while shared the non-objective aesthetic and
5103-471: The works of art exhibited. Traveling exhibitions in German and other European cities followed. The Blue Rider disbanded at the start of World War I in 1914. The artists associated with Der Blaue Reiter were important pioneers of modern art of the 20th century; they formed a loose network of relationships, but not an art group in the narrower sense like Die Brücke (The Bridge) in Dresden . The work of
5184-587: The young German artists who died in the First World War . August Robert Ludwig Macke was born in Germany on 3 January 1887, in Meschede , Westphalia . He was the only son of August Friedrich Hermann Macke (1845–1904), a building contractor and amateur artist, and his wife, Maria Florentine, née Adolph, (1848–1922), who came from a farming family in Westphalia's Sauerland region. Shortly after August's birth
5265-490: The young Kandinsky learned to play the piano and cello. Kandinsky also developed a theory of geometric figures and their relationships, claiming (for example) that the circle is the most peaceful shape and represents the human soul. These theories are explained in Point and Line to Plane . Kandinsky's legendary stage design for a performance of Mussorgsky 's Pictures at an Exhibition illustrates his synesthetic concept of
5346-504: Was 17 or 18 and he was 50 years old. At the end of 1917, they had a son, Wsevolod, or Lodya as he was called in the family. Lodya died in June 1920 and there were no more children. August Macke August Robert Ludwig Macke (3 January 1887 – 26 September 1914) was a German Expressionist painter. He was one of the leading members of the German Expressionist group Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider). He lived during
5427-561: Was a Russian painter and art theorist. Kandinsky is generally credited as one of the pioneers of abstraction in western art . Born in Moscow, he spent his childhood in Odessa , where he graduated from Odessa Art School . He enrolled at the University of Moscow , studying law and economics. Successful in his profession, he was offered a professorship (chair of Roman Law ) at the University of Dorpat (today Tartu, Estonia). Kandinsky began painting studies (life-drawing, sketching and anatomy) at
5508-441: Was a central aspect of his art. Some art historians suggest that Kandinsky's passion for abstract art began when one day, coming back home, he found one of his own paintings hanging upside down in his studio and he stared at it for a while before realizing it was his own work, suggesting to him the potential power of abstraction. In 1896, at the age of 30, Kandinsky gave up a promising career teaching law and economics to enroll in
5589-423: Was a haystack the catalogue informed me. I could not recognise it. This non-recognition was painful to me. I considered that the painter had no right to paint indistinctly. I dully felt that the object of the painting was missing. And I noticed with surprise and confusion that the picture not only gripped me, but impressed itself ineradicably on my memory. Painting took on a fairy-tale power and splendour. Kandinsky
5670-441: Was an art theorist; his influence on the history of Western art stems perhaps more from his theoretical works than from his paintings. He helped found the Neue Künstlervereinigung München (Munich New Artists' Association), becoming its president in 1909. However, the group could not integrate the radical approach of Kandinsky (and others) with conventional artistic concepts and the group dissolved in late 1911. Kandinsky then formed
5751-475: Was born in Moscow, the son of Lidia Ticheeva and Vasily Silvestrovich Kandinsky, a tea merchant. One of his great-grandmothers was Princess Gantimurova . Kandinsky learned from a variety of sources while in Moscow. He studied many fields while in school, including law and economics. Later in life, he would recall being fascinated and stimulated by colour as a child. His fascination with colour symbolism and psychology continued as he grew. In 1889, at age 23, he
5832-775: Was cut short by his early death in the second month of the First World War at the front in Champagne, France, on 26 September 1914. He was buried in the German Military Cemetery in Souain-Perthes-lès-Hurlus . His final painting, Farewell , depicts the mood of gloom that settled after the outbreak of war. The August Macke Prize , was given the first time in 1959 by the districts Arnsberg, Brilon, Olpe and Meschede , town of birth of August Macke in Germany. The August-Macke-Haus
5913-510: Was foreign to the argumentative materialism of Soviet society" and opportunities beckoned in Germany, to which he returned in 1920. There, he taught at the Bauhaus school of art and architecture from 1922 until the Nazis closed it in 1933. He then moved to France, where he lived for the rest of his life, becoming a French citizen in 1939 and producing some of his most prominent art. He died in Neuilly-sur-Seine in 1944. Kandinsky
5994-511: Was fundamental for the creation of the luminist approach of his final period, during which he produced a series of works now considered masterpieces, like his famous painting Türkisches Café . August Macke's oeuvre can be considered as Expressionism (in its original German flourishing between 1905 and 1925), and also as part of Fauvism. The paintings concentrate primarily on expressing feelings and moods rather than reproducing objective reality, usually distorting colour and form. Macke's career
6075-399: Was his spiritual pursuit of expressive forms. Emotional harmony is another salient feature in the later works of Kandinsky. With diverse dimensions and bright hues balanced through a careful juxtaposition of proportion and colours, he substantiated the universality of shapes in his artworks thus paving the way for further abstraction. Kandinsky often used black in his paintings to heighten
6156-400: Was important to the birth of abstract art since it is abstract by nature; it does not try to represent the exterior world, but expresses the inner feelings of the soul in an immediate way. Kandinsky sometimes used musical terms to identify his works; he called his most spontaneous paintings "improvisations" and described more elaborate works as "compositions." In addition to painting, Kandinsky
6237-619: Was part of an ethnographic research group that travelled to the Vologda region north of Moscow. In Looks on the Past , he relates that the houses and churches were decorated with such shimmering colours that upon entering them, he felt that he was moving into a painting. This experience, as well as his study of the region's folk art (particularly the use of bright colours on a dark background), were reflected in much of his early work. A few years later, he first likened painting to composing music in
6318-444: Was published in early 1912 by Piper in an edition that sold approximately 1100 copies; on 11 May, Franz Marc received the first print. The volume was edited by Kandinsky and Marc; its costs were underwritten by the industrialist and art collector Bernhard Koehler, a relative of Macke. It contained reproductions of more than 140 artworks, and 14 major articles. A second volume was planned, but the start of World War I prevented it. Instead,
6399-399: Was similarly influenced during this period by Richard Wagner 's Lohengrin which, he felt, pushed the limits of music and melody beyond standard lyricism. He was also spiritually influenced by Madame Blavatsky (1831–1891), the best-known exponent of theosophy . Theosophical theory postulates that creation is a geometrical progression, beginning with a single point. The creative aspect of
6480-422: Was thus a spin-off from the N.K.V.M. When there were repeated disputes among the conservative forces in the N.K.V.M, which flared up due to Kandinsky's increasingly abstract painting, he resigned the chairmanship on 10 January 1911 but remained in the association as a simple member. His successor was Adolf Erbslöh . In June, Kandinsky developed plans for his activities outside of the N.K.V.M. He intended to publish
6561-401: Was working on Composition VI . From nearly six months of study and preparation, he had intended the work to evoke a flood, baptism, destruction, and rebirth simultaneously. After outlining the work on a mural-sized wood panel, he became blocked and could not go on. Münter told him that he was trapped in his intellect and not reaching the true subject of the picture. She suggested he simply repeat
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