Kandinsky was born in Moscow in December 1866. Early in his life, he was
attracted by the drawing and painting. He practises them only for leisure.
He studies law at the university of Moscow and in the same time he keeps an
eye on the different exhibitions (he is very touched by a painting of Monet,
" les meules"). Abruptly, in 1896, whereas he was about to be
named professor of law, he went to Munich for studying the art painting. He
enters rather quickly to the Academy in the class of Franz Stuck. He founds
a group of artists, named "the Phalange", which is really active.
He creates a school of painting which is a failure and then he must close it
in 1904. He then leaves Munich for a succession of transfers: Holland in 1904,
Tunisia in 1905, Paris, Switzerland. He takes part from 1904 in the autumn
show, then, from 1907, in the Independent one. His paintings are inspired from
the impressionism, with a redder and more emphasized touch.
Then he gets closer to the fauvism, which offers him more possibilities of
interpretation.
He returned to Munich in 1908, and he continues his research to strip the landscape
of the anecdotic details. He is more than forty years old, when he finds with
certainty the new orientation that he will give to his painting: "I then
knew expressly that the objects harmed my painting".
In igio, he does his first abstract work: it is a watercolour. At the same
time, he completes the writing of "the spiritualism in the art",
which will be published two years later. Simultaneously, he paints canvas;
the subject still remains apparent although it is merged with an impression.
They are series:
Improvisations, numbered from 1 to 35, Impressions (six paintings), Compositions
(seven paintings), that he keeps doing until 1914. It is also the time when,
with Franz Marc and Paul Klee, he founds the "Blaue
Reiter" and organizes the exhibitions from 1911 to 1912. In 1913, he publishes
"Regard on the past" which is used as a basis for Switzerland. He
stops completely his production and decides to go back to Russia. After 1917,
he becomes member of the art section of the popular Police station. He creates
several museums and founds, in 1921, the Academy of artistic Science. Then,
Kandinsky returns to Germany and, in 1922, he becomes a professor in Bauhaus
of Weimar where he meets Klee. He follows the transfer of Bauhaus which is
moved to Dessau and publishes "the Point and line compared to the surface".
This is for him a period of intense production; He composes the imposing series
of the Circles (1925-
1927). So then he becomes close to Klee, although their reasonings remain very
different.
Lastly, he carries out the directing and the decor of an exhibition for Moussorgsky.
In 1928, Kandinsky takes the German nationality, but in 1933 the Bauhaus is
closed by the Nazis.
Fifty-seven of his paintings will be sold like degenerated art. Kandinsky settles
down in France, in Neuilly-sur-Seine. His French period starts with "Development
to the top" (1934). Very abundant, one hundred and forty-four paintings
and more than two hundred watercolours, this is
the achievement of its work.
Wassily Kandinsky died in December 1944. It had taken the French nationality
in 1939.
Black features, 1913.
| Museography The catalogue of Kandinsky includes a thousand of paintings.
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