Wassily Kandinsky
In this world, we have many people who contribute to the
development of humankind and play a vital role in creating a difference in
their surrounding environment. Driven by their:
- Extraordinary talents.
- Their
great efforts.
- Their bright view of what the world has to be
Those people
are always remembered through time and are credited for the way they shaped our
past, presence and future.
Wassily Kandinsky is considered a notable character and artist
whose achievements made new forms of expression in painting and came up with
new concepts in art that made him one of the greatest artists of the twentieth
century and of all time as well. Although he studied law and economics at the
University of Moscow, his love and passion for art that encouraged him to leave
a promising career in law and dedicate his life to art.
This paper will shed light on the political and social events
that took place during the Kandinsky’s entire life and had an effect, whether
directly or indirectly, on his personality, career, and artwork (Bassie, 2008).
Starting for his early years, Kandinsky was born in the late
1800s, which was a time of economic and cultural prosperity. There were some
political movements that happened such as the radical reforms, which were
introduced by Czar Alexander II
and resulted in the return of Kandinsky’s exiled family from
Serbia to Russia amongst other families who returned as well.
This can be seen as the very first political movement that took
place in the life of Kandinsky, even if it didn’t have a major influence on his
later productions. It affected his family and his father’s career in
particular, who worked as a tea merchant (Duchting, 2000).
He was one of the first artists who originated the concept of
abstract painting, which focuses on colours mainly and avoids any direct
resemblance to visual reality.
His first abstract painting, watercolor
His other abstract paintings
Alternatively, his work reflected the influence of other arts on
painting like music for example. Hence he became a leading figure in
abstractionism.
Kandinsky and Music
Interestingly, this type of art was somehow associated with the
western civilization and women’s movement for their rights. Because Kandinsky
relied on using colours for sending light into the darkness of men’s hearts,
his work was viewed in favour of women’s rights (Spielvogel, 2008).
He looked
at every colour in a unique way, as he believed that the agency of colours
results in achieving reconstitution since colours are able to express a variety
of psychological and psychosocial states in the soul of humans. For example, the
yellow gives you an inspiration of violence and frenzy while green gives you a
restful feeling (Izenberg, 2000).
Furthermore, the
twentieth century had another move that contributed to the alteration of
traditional artworks. This was the impact of science which was involved in
several complex and many-sided ways in the society and culture, thus it became
significantly basic for art.
According to Barasch Moshe (1998), the influence
of this scientific and social move could be seen on two levels. Some of simple
examples that affect every piece of an artist are the use of light and colour,
where more discoveries were made by scientists and used by artists to deliver
high quality and realistic art.
In fact, one particular discovery of the
twentieth century was the ‘dissolution of the atom’. Although this term sounded
very scientific and far away from art, a wide audience looked at it and
understood its meaning as the disintegration of the solid material world.
Kandinsky himself referred to this scientific discovery as a
social event as he explains its consequences on artists and people in general,
“The collapse of the atom was
equated, in my soul, with the collapse of the whole world. . . . Everything
became uncertain, precarious and insubstantial. I would not have been surprised
had a stone dissolved into thin air before my eyes and become invisible”. In a
way or another,
This quote took Kandinsky along with other artists to
the love of abstract world because they no longer believe in the reality of
solid materials and prefer to look at the world in an artistic colourful way
before it dissolves away (Moshe, 1998).
Modernism remains the most famous artistic and social move that
took place during the life of Kandinsky and contributed to shaping that
period’s artists as well as the next generations.
Logically, Kandinsky and
modernism are linked to each other because abstractionism was described and
defined as the modern art in the twentieth century as the European painting was
moving away from the naturalistic representation.
Accordingly, this
transformation was seen a strong cultural inevitability. By then, the modern
society had turned life into a game where artists were competing wildly for
external success (Izenberg, 2000).
Not only did that social revolution happen in Europe, but in
fact was extended in other parts of the world like China. Towards the end of
the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century, the Chinese artists
were losing their interest in the traditional art and aiming for a new era
where they can change their culture’s art from
“being a sage” to “reforming
society”,
from “returning to nature” to “reflecting on reality”.
Therefore, it is obvious that modernism is derived from the new
way of thinking of artists who aimed at combining several types of art into
each other like Kandinsky who used music and science as well for producing
significant pieces of art. Kandinsky was one of the leaders at that time who
encouraged others to follow his steps and enter that unique path of modernism
and abstractionism (Miaoyang,
Xuanmeng & McLean, 1997).
The secret behind Kandinsky’s extreme success and fame through
the modernism movement was related to his ability of understanding musical
composition and how it can be beneficial as a prototype for painting.
In other
words, he believed that the musical schemes of organization played a role in
holding the world together and giving it a vivid shape. All those reasons
combined together, in addition to Kandinsky’s thirst for change and success,
were factors that drove the modernism movement further forward and helped it
extend through the world by attracting other artists who were impressed by the
theory and application of abstractionism (Leggio, 2002).
Moreover, Kandinsky became a famous founder of expressionist
groups like the Blaue Reiter in 1911.
But Germany’s defeat in World War I, which I believe is one of
the famous historical political events during that period, was one of the
causes behind the collapse of imperial art.
Almost ten years later, after the
civil revolution, modernism started to appear in all areas of production such
as
- Sculpture
- Architecture
- Design
- Film
- Photography
- Theatre
- Painting
Kandinsky - beside other famous artists like Otto Dix, Hannah Hoch, and
others - established international reputations as leaders of the German
objectivity movement on the 1920s (McCloskey, 2005).
As explained by David Roberts (2011), prior to the World War I,
Kandinsky was driven and inspired by the idea of society rebirth, which can
only be achieved by the union of all artistic means together.
Through his view
of the modern society of the twentieth century, “Kandinsky starts from the
following premises:
First, that each art has its own language (method) and is complete
in itself.
Second, from the perspective of the final goal of knowledge,
these methods are all inwardly identical, in that they all have as their goal
spiritual action, the awakening in the soul of the audience of vibrations akin
to those of the artist. The goal of the artwork is accordingly a distinctive
complex of vibrations”.
In conclusion, Wassily Kandinsky was one of the significant
names of the twentieth century whose artistic accomplishments affected the
entire world positively. Being driven by numerous scientific, social and
political movements; Kandinsky was able to benefit from any change in his
surrounding environment in creating a new sense of life and applying that
change uniquely in his work.
Furthermore, he drove some artists from the same
culture in addition to other cultures towards his artistic path which captured
wide attention.
Modernism, which reflects the modern art of the twentieth
century, was founded partially by Kandinsky who led the movement after the
collapse of art in Germany as a result of World War I. In summary, he was an
extraordinary character that influenced the humanity’s past, present and future
through his contributions to combining different art types together and
producing a collective piece. Wassily Kandinsky was one of his kind not only
because of his talent, but also because of his awareness that was obvious
through seizing the opportunities available in every social or political move.
Here are some links that you can know more about Wassily Kandinsky.
Website:
http://www.wassilykandinsky.net/
Videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8yk1Z1224o&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Td_1z-ZvJjE&feature=related
