Wassily Kandinsky ESSAY!

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, and 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. After searching for spirituality in the world of art, he finally reached a stage where he abandoned using figures that are derived from the nature and real world. Alternatively, his work reflected the influence of other arts on painting like music for example. Hence he became a leading figure in abstractionism. 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, and painting of course. 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.

References

Bassie, A. (2008). Expressionism. New York: Parkstone Press International.

Duchting, H. (2000). Kandinsky. Benedikt Taschen Verlag GmbH.

Izenberg, G. (2000). Modernism & Masculinity: Mann, Wedekind, Kandinsky Through World War I. London: The University of Chicago Press, Ltd.

Leggio, J. (2002). Music and Modern Art. New York: New Fetter Lane.

McCloskey, B. (2005). Artists of World War II. Westport: Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc.

Miaoyang, W., Xuanmeng, Y., & McLean, G. (1997). Beyond modernization: Chinese roots for global awareness. Chinese Philosophical Studies (III),  12.

Mosche, B. (1998). Modern Theories of Art : From Impressionism to Kandinsky. Volume 2. New York: NYU Press.

Roberts, D. (2011). The Total Work of Art in European Modernism. New York: Cornell University Press.