Friday 25 September 2009

Kandinsky




As promised, here is my post on Vasily Kandinsky. The pictures I've chosen to include are just some of my favourites that I saw in the museum. As we weren't allowed to take photos, these have actually come from the Guggenheim website. I chose Kandinsky as one of my inspirational artists, because I genuinely love his work. I'd heard about him in High School, when doing a project on abstract art, but for some reason forgot about his work until I saw it hanging in the Guggenheim museum in New York. I couldn't understand why, as I really warmed to his paintings all those years ago. Seeing them in front of me, really was inspiring though, I liked being able to go really close and see the tiny details to his work.

His exhibition was actually situated in the spiralling part of the Guggenheim, which really framed his work well. His earlier work was at the bottom, and as you worked your way up the building you could see how his style changed and developed. The three pictures displayed above shows this development well, going from what I like to describe as frantic, to something more detailed yet just as abstract. It really does look like another artists work. As I found out from listening to the audio commentary, Kandinsky was born in Russia and went on to study law and economics, he didn't actually start painting till he was 30. His spiritualistic and expressionistic view was quite unpopular to begin with, so he travelled to Germany, where he began teaching at the Bauhaus. You can definitely see this influence in his later paintings. He then travelled to France, where he lived the rest of his life. Another interesting thing I learned was that Kandinsky was greatly influenced by classical music, on the way round the museum you could listen to the various pieces he listened to as he painted.

I can't say I fully understand all of his paintings, I think that's the whole point with abstraction, you perceive how you would like to. The main thing I really enjoyed about his work, was the colour. The way he could combine colours and knew exactly how to use them was fascinating.


1 comment:

  1. I agree completely with what you say at the end you can't fully understand any of the paintings, I love that because as you say you perceive it as you like and that means everyone's perception of each piece is different.

    I really like the first piece its almost like a firework right at the point where it explodes into a burst of bright colours.

    Good choice of artist!

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