Book Description

Concerning the Spiritual in Art by Wassily Kandinsky. About the Author: Kandinsky was born in the year 1866 and differently from what people can suppose he wasn't originally a painter. In fact in Odessa he went to the university of law and economics. Just in a second part of his life he will rediscover the passion for art and colours that he used to have when he was a child. The first period of Kandisnsky life and career as a painter will be based on paints dedicated to the expression of intense and deep thoughts of the artist. Is during this period that the artist together with a group of other people will give birth to "der blaue reiter" translated with the blue knight. It was a group of artists heart of the German expressionism. During his studies as artist and painter Kandinsky will meet a wide variety of sources of inspiration but topics that will most affect his work will be the colour symbolism and the psychology. To give fame to Kandinsky, or at last, to make his fame so great is the fact that to this artist is attributable one of the first abstract works of the modern art. During his life the artist will get in touch and become a member of symbolists groups and in particular will be part of the group known as the blue rose which will be (or critics think so) somehow involved in the creation of the painting: The blue mountain. In the painting the use of horses symbolize the battle of the author against traditional art in fact in the same period during which he completed "The blue mountain" he also achieved to realize many other paintings about horses and riders, actually the amount of these paintings is of at last seven. To better understand this artist, anyway, there are mainly other two elements to know and understand. These elements are the artistic movements that inspired and, in different periods, attracted the artist. Of all the possible movements to list two were particularly important to Kandinsky: Fauvism and pointillism. Fauvism was mainly known in France, it wasn't a real and officially known group of artists but they were very close to themes of the impressionism following the experiences made by Van Gogh and Gaugin. The use of bright and unnatural colours was the element that attracted Kandinsky. For basically the same reason, the artist, will spend a period close to the other group: the group of pointillist artists. Where other than the colours' use Kandinsky will be interested also to the loss of unitary shapes.