Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944)Innovation. It's a hallmark of managed care pharmacy. And it also is the mark of many great artists throughout history, including Wassily Kandinsky.
Kandinsky, whose work "Several Circles" appears on the cover of this issue of JMCP, is credited with producing the first completely abstract painting in 1910. Other painters at that time were painting images that had abstract elements, but these works continued to have recognizable objects as well. Kandinsky was virtually alone in his pioneering work in creating what he called "nonobjective" painting. It is difficult to tell where Kandinsky got his great passion for abstract painting. Unlike some of his contemporaries, he kept his thoughts and feelings private and had few friends. To this day, Kandinsky remains a mysterious, yet fascinating, personality.
Kandinsky was born in Moscow in December 1866 to a relatively well-to-do family; his father was a tea trader. Young Wassily enjoyed the best education that was available at the time in Russia, studying both law and national economics at university. His legal skills were so impressive that he was appointed a lecturer in jurisprudence and later offered a professorship at the University of Dorpat. However, Kandinsky already had begun to tire of the law and had developed an active interest in painting. He turned down the professorship and moved with his new wife to Munich, where he attended art school.
Munich offered Kandinsky an opportunity to study classic styles of painting, although the atmosphere there was hardly visionary or innovative. Impressionism had created barely a stir, and realism was considered rather avant garde. However, Kandinsky had come to learn, and learn he did. He studied with the painter Franz Stuck, under whose tutelage Kandinsky clearly improved and began to perfect his craft.
After his formal training, Kandinsky began to paint naturalistic paintings, many of which were influenced by Jugendstil, Germany's answer to Art Nouveau. Jugendstil appealed to the mystical side of Kandinsky. However, he did not completely immerse himself in the style; instead, he allowed it to touch him. To the naturalistic style of Jugendstil, Kandinsky added romantic images of his native land, such as knights, princesses, birch woods, and rising moons. The result was haunting and unusual, and Kandinsky soon began to feel more independent as an artist. He helped found an artists' club called Phalanx, which enabled Munich's artists to exhibit and study.
Although Kandinsky's work had a distinctly modernistic look by the turn of the century, it wasn't until his trips abroad in the early 1900s that his unique style blossomed and took hold. By 1908, the artist had tired of Munich and moved his family to Murnau, Germany, where his work took on a passionate and unrestrained tone.
Kandinsky soon found himself facing a challenge. He was increasingly drawn to abstract painting, but he was unwilling to sacrifice the spiritual quality of his work. He himself noted, "If we begin at once to break the bonds that bind us to nature and to devote ourselves purely to combination of pure colour and independent form, we shall produce works which are mere geometric design, resembling something like a necktie or a carpet. When we remember, however, that spiritual experience is quickening, that positive science, the firmest basis of human thought is tottering, that dissolution of matter is imminent, we have reason to hope that the hour of pure composition is not far away."1
Thus, Kandinsky began to experiment, and his unique abstract style began to emerge. Traditional forms, such as a horse and rider, were translated into a complex of lines. Color continued to play a key role. However, this final move to abstraction was not swift. It took him four years, and he still was painting landscapes as late as 1913. This isn't surprising, as he was working alone and it took time for him to build the courage to put his ideas into action. When he did, however, his work successfully reached full abstraction while continuing to evoke emotional, spiritual, and lyrical reactions.
Despite the fact that his work had blossomed and matured, life in Germany was getting difficult. When World War I broke out, Kandinsky moved back to Russia. Then, in 1921, Kandinsky returned to Germany and accepted a post at the Bauhaus in 1922. Founded by Walter Gropius in 1919, Bauhaus was a school of creative art and design. While there, Kandinsky wrote his own textbook, Point and Line to Plane, published in 1926. It was during this time that he painted "Several Circles." He was particularly proud of this work, which explores his fascination with circles; Kandinsky felt that the circle is the synthesis of oppositions and combines the concentric with the eccentric in a single, balanced form.
In 1932, the Bauhaus school was closed down by the Nazis, who were rising to power and feared the institute as a source of dangerous liberal thought. Kandinsky moved to Paris, where his paintings became richer and reached a synthesis of organic and geometric forms. He lived here until his death in 1944.
Cover Credit
Reference
Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) Several Circles, oil on canvas. Copyright© 1998, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Musuem, New York. All rights reserved.
1. Whitford F. Kandinsky. London: Paul Hamlyn Limited, 1967.