Kandinsky - Delphi Collected Works of Wassily Kandinsky

Wassily Kandinsky

(18661944)

Contents

Delphi Classics 2015

Version 1

Masters of Art Series

Wassily Kandinsky

By Delphi Classics, 2015

Moscow, c. 1900 Kandinskys birthplace

Kandinsky, 1905

THE HIGHLIGHTS

In this section, a sample of some of Kandinskys most celebrated works is provided, with concise introductions, special detail reproductions and additional biographical images.

Wassily Kandinsky was born in Moscow, the son of Lidia Ticheeva and Vasily Silvestrovich Kandinsky, a tea merchant. During his school years he was interested in many subjects, including law and economics. In later years, the artist recalled his early fascination and stimulated interest in colour, which later developed through concepts of colour symbolism and psychology. He enrolled at the University of Moscow, studying law and economics. Though successful in this profession, to the extent that he was offered a professorship (chair of Roman Law) at the University of Dorpat, Kandinsky was much more interested in painting studies, including life-drawing, sketching and anatomy.

In 1896, at the age of 30, he took the surprising step of giving up a promising career teaching law and economics to enrol in an art school in Munich. At first he was not granted official admission and had to begin learning art on his own. That same year, before leaving Moscow, he saw an exhibit of paintings by Claude Monet. He was particularly interested in the impressionistic portrayal of Haystacks , due to the compositions powerful sense of colour, which was almost independent of the represented objects themselves. Odessa Port , Kandinskys first recorded oil canvas, which was completed in 1898 and now hangs in the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, demonstrates the artists early interest in Impressionism. The canvas depicts an overcast day in the almost empty port, with a lone ship taking up the main focal point of the image. Taken from a low viewpoint, the ship appears large and almost threatening, as the dark mast propels up into the hazy sky. The depiction of the water surrounding the hull is where the composition is most impressionistic. The division of shadow and light on the seas surface is portrayed through thick brushstrokes, presenting the impression of movement and reflection, similar to how Monet and the Impressionists convey the movement of water.

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The Port of Odessa today

Kandinsky as a child, aged five

Gabriele Mnter (1877-1962) was a German expressionist painter at the forefront of the Munich avant-garde in the early 20th century. She came from an upper middle-class background and her parents supported her wish to become an artist. Mnter took classes at Munichs progressive new Phalanx School, where she studied woodcut techniques, sculpture, painting and printmaking. Soon after she began taking classes, Mnter became attached to Kandinsky, who was the Phalanx Schools director. He was the first teacher that had actually taken Mnters painting abilities seriously. In the summer of 1902, Kandinsky invited her to join him at his summer painting classes just south of Munich in the Alps. She accepted and their relationship became intimate. Kandinsky and Mnters professional and personal relationship lasted for twelve years and Kandinsky was married while he was with Mnter. They spent a great deal of time together travelling through Europe, including Holland, Italy and France, as well as North Africa. It was during this time that they met Rousseau and Matisse. Mnter and Kandinsky fell in love with the village of Murnau in southern Bavaria. Later on, Mnter bought a house in this city and spent much of her life there. Together, they helped establish the Munich-based avant-garde group called the New Artists Association.

This 1905 portrait of Gabriele Mnter, now housed in Munichs Stadtische Galerie, is a particularly personal depiction of the artists lover. The subject looks challengingly at the viewer, a hint of a smile on her lips, while her eyes hint at a more sombre emotion. Thick brushstrokes delineate her white garment, once again stressing Kandinskys early interest with Impressionism. The limited background detail helps to serve as a foil to the lucent skin and detailed shadowing of the sitters face. Oddly, the focal point of the composition is a large bow worn by Mnter, which is also depicted with large blue brushstrokes, exerting a dominating shadow around its border.

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