Linien (meaning "The Line") was an artists' association in Denmark in the 1930s and 1940s focusing on Abstraction and Symbolism . The group's exhibitions in Copenhagen created wide international participation. After the Second World War , the association was revived as Linien II with an emphasis on Concrete art .
81-421: In the 1930s, art moved into a new phase experiments in the theoretical and intellectual use of shapes and symbols while at the same time a symbolism emerged from the world of dreams. This was the basis for Concrete art and Surrealism which became the latest trend in the international Avant-garde movement. The association of Abstraction and Surrealism was pioneered by Vilhelm Bjerke-Petersen who in 1930 joined
162-524: A "line" through all fields of art and culture. The first issue of the journal, which was published in conjunction with the association's opening exhibition on 15 January 1934, presented the movement as a group of abstract-surrealist artists who would endeavor to provide support for innovative art. The first exhibition presented 177 works and was seen by 2,500 visitors. In 1935, Vilhelm Bjerke-Petersen, who had become more interested in pure Surrealism, invited Wilhelm Freddie and Harry Carlsson to participate in
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
324-584: A distinction began to be made between 'cold abstraction', which was identified with geometric Concrete Art, and 'warm abstraction', which, as it moved towards the various kinds of Lyrical abstraction , reintroduced personality into art. The former eventually fed into international movements building on technological aspects championed by the pioneers of Concrete Art, emerging as optical art , kinetic art and programmatic art. The term Concrete also began to be extended to other disciplines than painting, including sculpture, photography and poetry. Justification for this
405-503: 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
486-402: A political career. In May 1930 they published a single issue of their own French-language magazine, Revue Art Concret , which featured a joint manifesto , positioning them as the more radical group of abstractionists. " BASIS OF CONCRETE PAINTING We say: The group was short lived and only exhibited together on three occasions in 1930 as part of larger group exhibitions, the first being at
567-615: 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
648-459: A rival group, Art Concret , championing a geometrical abstract art closely related to the aesthetics of Neo-plasticism . In his opinion, the term 'abstract' as applied to art had negative connotations; in its place he preferred the more positive term ‘concrete’. Van Doesburg was eventually joined by Otto G. Carlsund , Léon Arthur Tutundjian , Jean Hélion and his fellow lodger, the typographer Marcel Wantz (1911–79), who soon left to take up
729-593: A series of annual exhibitions began in the Salon des Réalités Nouvelles , which included some of these artists and were devoted, according to its articles of association, to "works of art commonly called: concrete art, non-figurative or abstract art". In 1951 Groupe Espace was founded in France to harmonize painting, sculpture and architecture as a single discipline. This grouped sculptors and architects with old established artists such as Sonia Delaunay and Jean Gorin and
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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#1732793310664972-1024: 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
1215-421: 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
1296-530: 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
1377-435: 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
1458-538: 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
1539-591: 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
1620-544: The Bauhaus School in Weimar , a key Avant-garde institution which revolutionized not just painting but architecture, sculpture, literature, theatre and dance. Bauhaus is remembered for its influence on Abstract art and Functionalist architecture and design. At the Bauhaus, Bjerke Petersen had studied under Wassily Kandinsky and Paul Klee and was thus familiar with contemporary theories of abstract art. This led to
1701-595: 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
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#17327933106641782-526: 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
1863-675: The Salon des Surindépendents in June, followed by Production Paris 1930 in Zürich , and in August the exhibition AC: Internationell utställning av postkubistisk konst (International exhibition of post-cubist art) in Stockholm , curated by Carlsund. In the catalog to the latter, Carlsund states that the group's "programme is clear: absolute Purism. Neo-Plasticism , Purism and Constructivism combined". Shortly before van Doesburg's death in 1931,
1944-507: 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
2025-587: 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
2106-496: 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
2187-613: 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
2268-549: 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
2349-776: 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
2430-429: 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
2511-666: The Surrealists Max Ernst , Paul Klee , Joan Miró and Yves Tanguy and a considerable number of Danish artists. Linien's last exhibition was held in 1939 with the participation of Mortensen, Bille, Egill Jacobsen and the sculptor Sonja Ferlov . In 1947, a number of artists including Ib Geertsen , Bamse Kragh-Jacobsen , Niels Macholm , Albert Mertz and Richard Winther created Linien II with an exhibition in Tokanten's gallery in Copenhagen. Other members of
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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
2673-670: 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...
2754-453: 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
2835-524: 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
2916-421: The candidates between artists whose work was still not completely abstract and those free of referentiality. As this classification entailed the possibility of a disqualification of the first group, the discussions between the two soon broke down, prompting Torres-García to team up instead with Belgian critic Michel Seuphor and form the group Cercle et Carré . Following this, van Doesburg proceeded to propose
2997-504: 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:
3078-406: 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
3159-711: 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
3240-526: The elements of which it is constructed: line, plane and color. Some later artists associated with this tendency, such as Victor Vasarély , Jean Dewasne , Mario Negro and Richard Mortensen , only came to painting after first studying science. Nevertheless, all theoretical advances seek justification in past practice, and in this case the mathematical proportions expressed in abstract form are to be identified in various art forms over millennia. Thus, argued Haftmann, "the elimination of representational images and
3321-479: 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
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3402-688: The group included Vilhelm Bjerke Petersen, Richard Mortensen, Sonja Ferlov Mancoba, Robert Jacobsen , Paul Gadegaard , Gunnar Aagaard Andersen , Henrik Buch , Helge Jacobsen , Søren Georg Jensen and Knud Nielsen. An exhibition the following year presented Constructive works, providing support for Concretism in Denmark. In 1950, Linien II held Denmark's largest exhibition of Concrete art with wide international participation including works by Wassily Kandinsky , Fernand Léger , Jean Arp , Le Corbusier , Auguste Herbin , Alexander Calder , Victor Vasarely , Alberto Magnelli and Jean Dewasne . The event led to
3483-419: 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
3564-501: 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
3645-594: 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
3726-577: The large international exhibition on Cubism and Surrealism instead of Bille and Mortensen. The exhibition is considered to be one of the most important in Denmark, bringing together Erik Olson , Jean Arp , Max Ernst , Paul Klee , Joan Miró , Salvador Dalí and Yves Tanguy . Bille and Mortensen terminated their collaboration with Petersen and in 1937 put on a kind of repeat international exhibition of Cubism-Surrealism with Abstract and Constructive artists including Theo van Doesburg , Piet Mondrian , Wassily Kandinsky and Sophie Taeuber-Arp together with
3807-587: 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
3888-495: The members of the Art Concret group still active in Paris united with the larger association Abstraction-Création . In 1930, Michel Seuphor had defined the role of the abstract artist in the first issue of Cercle et Carré . It was "to establish, on the foundations of a structure that is simple, severe and unadorned in every part, and within a basis of unconcealed narrow unity with this structure, an architecture which, using
3969-436: 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
4050-406: 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
4131-601: The newly emergent Jean Dewasne and Victor Vasarély . Its manifesto was published in L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui that year and placarded on the streets of Paris, championing the fundamental presence of the plastic arts in all aspects of life for the harmonious development of all human activities. It extended beside into practical politics, having elected as its honorary president the Minister for Reconstruction and Urban Development, Eugène Claudius-Petit . As time progressed,
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#17327933106644212-535: 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 ),
4293-460: The overt use of pure geometry do not imply a radical and definitive rejection of the great art of the past, but rather a reassertion of its eternal values stripped of their historical and social disguises." While Abstraction-Création was a grouping of all modernistic tendencies, there were those within it who carried the idea of mathematically inspired art and the term ‘concrete art’ to other countries when they moved elsewhere. A key figure among them
4374-466: 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,
4455-479: 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
4536-472: The publication in 1933 of Symboler i abstrakt kunst (Symbols in Abstract Art) which served as a manifesto for the movement in Denmark. In 1934, together with Ejler Bille and Richard Mortensen , Petersen founded Linien which covered both Abstraction and Symbolism. Together with its accompanying journal, also called Linien , the movement was a forum for new, revolutionary art in Denmark providing
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
4698-709: The same time founded abstract-konkret , the monthly bulletin of the Gallerie des Eaux Vives in Zurich. By 1960 Bill was organizing a large retrospective exhibition of Concrete Art in Zürich illustrating 50 years of its development. Abstraction, which had been quietly gathering momentum in Italy between the world wars, emerged officially in the Movimento d'arte concreta (MAC) in 1948, whose foremost exponent, Alberto Magnelli ,
4779-791: The style in Latin America . The term was taken up widely after World War 2 and promoted through a number of international exhibitions and art movements. After the formal break up of De stijl , following the last issue of its magazine in 1928, van Doesburg began considering the creation of a new collective centered on a similar approach to abstraction. In 1929 he discussed his plans with Uruguayan painter Joaquín Torres-García , with candidates for membership of this group including Georges Vantongerloo , Constantin Brâncuși , František Kupka , Piet Mondrian , Friedrich Vordemberge-Gildewart and Antoine Pevsner , among others. However, van Doesburg divided
4860-403: The summer of 1945. Described as "the first major post-World War 2 exhibition of abstract art", the artists exhibited there included the older generation of abstractionists: Jean Arp , Sophie Taeuber-Arp , Sonia Delaunay , César Domela , Otto Freundlich , Jean Gorin , Auguste Herbin , Wassily Kandinsky , Alberto Magnelli, Piet Mondrian, Antoine Pevsner and van Doesburg. In the following year
4941-786: The technical means available to its period, expresses in a clear language that which is truly immanent and immutable." The art historian Werner Haftmann traces the development of the pure abstraction proposed by Seuphor to the synthesis of Russian Constructivism and Dutch Neo-Plasticism in the Bauhaus , where painting abandoned the artificiality of representation for technological authenticity. "In close connection with architecture and engineering, art should endeavour to give form to life itself … [The former] provided new sources of inspiration as well as new materials – steel, aluminium, glass, synthetic materials." As van Doesburg had pointed out in his manifesto, in order to be universal, art must abandon subjectivity and find impersonal inspiration purely in
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#17327933106645022-431: 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
5103-486: 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
5184-552: 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
5265-627: The withdrawal of the French as well as Mortensen and Jacobsen who did not take part in the last two exhibitions held in 1951 and 1952. These did however attract a considerable number of American artists including Josef Albers . Although Linien II was dissolved in 1952, two further exhibitions were held: Linien 3, konkret realisme (Linien 3, Concrete Realism) in 1956 and Linien igen (Linien Again) in 1958. They presented works by more recent Concrete artists including Ole Schwalbe , Jørn Larsen and Mogens Lohmann . Concrete art Concrete art
5346-817: 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
5427-490: 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
5508-616: Was Joaquín Torres García, who returned to South America in 1934 and mentored artists there. Some of those went on to found the group Arte Concreto Invención in Buenos Aires in 1945. Another was the designer Max Bill, who had studied at the Bauhaus in 1927–9. After returning to Switzerland, he helped organize the Allianz group to champion the ideals of Concrete Art. In 1944 he organized the first international exhibition in Basle and at
5589-441: 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
5670-423: 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
5751-425: Was an art movement with a strong emphasis on geometrical abstraction. The term was first formulated by Theo van Doesburg and was then used by him in 1930 to define the difference between his vision of art and that of other abstract artists of the time. After his death in 1931, the term was further defined and popularized by Max Bill , who organized the first international exhibition in 1944 and went on to help promote
5832-528: 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
5913-711: Was another past member of Abstraction-Création and had been living in France for many years. However, some seventy native painters were represented in the Arte astratta e concreta in Italia exhibition held three years later at the National Gallery in Rome. In Paris recognition of this approach resulted in several exhibitions of which the first was titled Art Concret and held at the Gallerie René Drouin during
5994-475: 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
6075-565: 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
6156-399: 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
6237-400: 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
6318-619: 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
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
6480-521: Was theorized in South America in the 1959 Neo-Concrete Manifesto , written by a group of artists in Rio de Janeiro who included Lygia Clark , Hélio Oiticica and Lygia Pape . Wassily Kandinsky Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky (16 December [ O.S. 4 December] 1866 – 13 December 1944) was a Russian painter and art theorist. Kandinsky is generally credited as one of
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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