Wassily Kandinsky
Wassily Kandinsky
Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinskywas an influential Russian painter and art theorist. He is credited with painting one of the first purely abstract works. Born in Moscow, Kandinsky spent his childhood in Odessa, where he graduated at Grekov Odessa Art school. He enrolled at the University of Moscow, studying law and economics. Successful in his profession—he was offered a professorshipat the University of Dorpat—Kandinsky began painting studiesat the age of 30...
NationalityRussian
ProfessionPainter
Date of Birth16 December 1866
CityMoscow, Russia
CountryRussian Federation
Everything starts from a dot.
Orange is red brought nearer to humanity by yellow.
In the hierarchy of colors, green represents the social middle class, self-satisfied, immovable, narrow...
All methods are sacred if they are internally necessary. All methods are sins if they are not justified by internal necessity.
An empty canvas is a living wonder — far lovelier than certain pictures.
The life of the spirit may be fairly represented in diagram as a large acute-angled triangle divided horizontally into unequal parts with the narrowest segment uppermost. The lower the segment the greater it is in breadth, depth, and area.
Absolute green is the most restful color, lacking any undertone of joy, grief, or passion. On exhausted men this restfulness has a beneficial effect, but after a time it becomes tedious.
The word compositon moved me spiritually and I made it my aim in life to paint a composition. It affected me like a prayer and filled me with awe.
In place of an intensive cooperation among artists, there is a battle for goods. Hatred, partisanship, cliques, jealousy, and intrigues are the natural consequences of an aimless, materialist art.
I let myself go. I thought little of the houses and trees, but applied colour stripes and spots to the canvas... Within me sounded the memory of early evening in Moscow - before my eyes was the strong, colour-saturated scale of the Munich light and atmosphere, which thundered deeply in the shadows.
Painting took on a fabulous strength and splendor; the object was discredited as an indispensable element of the picture.
With cold eyes and indifferent mind the spectators regard the work. Connoissers admire the "skill" (as one admires a tightrope walker), enjoy the "quality of painting" (as one enjoys a pasty). But hungry souls go hungry away. The vulgar herd stroll through the rooms and pronounce the pictures "nice" or "splendid." Those who could speak have said nothing, those who could hear have heard nothing.
The artist must be blind to distinction between 'recognized' or 'unrecognized' conventions of form, deaf to the transitory teaching and demands of his particular age.
The circle is the synthesis of the greatest oppositions. It combines the concentric and the eccentric in a single form and in equilibrium. Of the three primary forms, it points most clearly to the fourth dimension.