Abstract Art
Abstract artworks diverge from depicting recognizable scenes or objects and instead use colors, forms, and lines to create compositions that exist independently of visual references from the natural world. This movement, which gained momentum in the early 20th century, was propelled by artists such as Wassily Kandinsky, Piet Mondrian, and Kazimir Malevich. These artists aimed to explore spiritual, emotional, and More is considered by many to be one of the most important contributions made to the history of art in the 20th century. Wassily Kandinsky is credited as the pioneer of abstract modern art, being the first artist to have created a completely abstract picture. His notion that only total abstraction could offer profound and transcendental expression had a strong impact on the international development of abstraction. He believed that copying from nature would interfere with this process and was driven by the pursuit to symbolize the “inner need” of the artist, harkening towards spiritual awakening through the medium of art. The painting “Squares with Concentric Circles” shows his fascination with the synesthetic relationship between music and painting, seeking to imbue his paintings with the abstract melodic language of the universal sensations of the inner soul.
Where is the picture “Squares with Concentric Circles” today?
The Kandinsky original of the picture “Squares with Concentric Circles” (“Farbstudie Quadrate”) is part of the permanent collection of the Städtische Galerie in Lenbach in Munich.
What’s in it?
In “Squares with Concentric Circles” Kandinsky explored how the combination of different colours and forms impact emotions when combining them next to each other. For example, a large yellow ring as background to a hue of red would evoke a different emotion in contrast to being put in small size next to a blue. Kandinsky defined yellow as “an intense trumpet blast by its nature springing from the page’ and blue as having “a celestial sound that touches the depths”. He was convinced that colour could express feelings without representing any object, but that colour itself could be elements of a composition.
What’s the context?
Wassily KandinskyWassily (Vasily) Kandinsky (1866 – 1944) is known as one of the pioneers of abstract modern art. He was born in in Moscow to upper-class parents of mixed ethnic origins. At an early age, Kandinsky showed a rare sensitivity towards music and the arts, which his father strongly supported. Kandinsky decided to study law, ethnography, and economics, and started successfully More – Der Blaue Reiter:
Kandinsky created the colour composition “Squares with Concentric Circles” during his years of “Der Blaue Reiter” (“The Blue Rider”) movement in Munich, one key pioneering movements of German ExpressionismExpressionism in fine arts was a modernist movement, which originated in Germany in the late 19th and early 20th century. Its roots of can be traced to Post-Impressionist artists like Edvard Munch in Norway, and Gustav Klimt of the Vienna Secession. Core attribute of Expressionism is the tendency to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting objects radically More. “Der Blaue Reiter” was founded reacting to feelings of alienation within an increasingly modernized world, seeking to transcend the mundane by pursuing the spiritual value of art. Besides Kandinsky, key proponents of the movement were Franz Marc, Paul Klee, and Gabriele Münter, further Russian immigrant artists and native Germans, together producing numerous theoretical works of literature. In his work “Concerning the Spiritual in Art”, Kandinsky dwelled on the psychology of colour and the compositional interrelation of forms. He described the main goal of an artist to lead himself and the viewer towards an “innermost necessity”, that is based on the spiritual foundations of the individual.
Chatter and Prattle
Wassily KandinskyWassily (Vasily) Kandinsky (1866 – 1944) is known as one of the pioneers of abstract modern art. He was born in in Moscow to upper-class parents of mixed ethnic origins. At an early age, Kandinsky showed a rare sensitivity towards music and the arts, which his father strongly supported. Kandinsky decided to study law, ethnography, and economics, and started successfully More – Facts:
- Kandinsky experienced a neurological phenomenon called synesthesia (or “joined perception”). With this rare condition one sense, like hearing, concurrently triggers another sense, such as sight. For example, people with synesthesia can see a shape when they eat a certain food, or smell something when they hear a sound. Kandinsky literally saw colours when hearing music, and he heard music when he painted.
- Therefore, for Kandinsky music and colour were inextricably tied to one another. This relationship was so clear to him, that he once expressed: “the sound of colours is so definite that it would be hard to find anyone who would express bright yellow with bass notes or dark lake with treble.”
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Michael Kerrigan (2015): Wassily Kandinsky Masterpieces of Art
Helmut Friedel et al. (2016): Vasily Kandinsky
Wassily KandinskyWassily (Vasily) Kandinsky (1866 – 1944) is known as one of the pioneers of abstract modern art. He was born in in Moscow to upper-class parents of mixed ethnic origins. At an early age, Kandinsky showed a rare sensitivity towards music and the arts, which his father strongly supported. Kandinsky decided to study law, ethnography, and economics, and started successfully More (2019): Sounds
Wassily KandinskyWassily (Vasily) Kandinsky (1866 – 1944) is known as one of the pioneers of abstract modern art. He was born in in Moscow to upper-class parents of mixed ethnic origins. At an early age, Kandinsky showed a rare sensitivity towards music and the arts, which his father strongly supported. Kandinsky decided to study law, ethnography, and economics, and started successfully More (2019): Concerning the Spiritual in Art
Kenneth C. Lindsay et al. (1994): Kandinsky: Complete Writings On Art
