Wassily Kandinsky

A. Together with the German painter Franz Marc, Kandinsky became a leader in the influential Blaue Reiter (Blue Rider) movement, an expressionist group. He and Marc edited a Blue Rider almanac in which they reproduced art from all ages.
Marc and Kandinsky organized avant-garde international exhibitions in Munich and elsewhere--exhibitions that proved to be major events in the development of German expressionism.

B. A significant change took place in Kandinsky's work during the 1920s. From the romantic superabundance of his earlier abstract expressionism, his style evolved into geometric forms--points, bundles of lines, circles, and triangles. During the last decade of his life, Kandinsky blended the free, intuitive image of his earlier years with the geometric forms of his Bauhaus period.

C. Ranked among the artists whose work changed the history of art in the early years of the 20th century, the Russian abstract painter Wassily Kandinsky is generally regarded as one of the originators of abstract painting, or abstract expressionism. In both his painting and his theoretical writings he influenced modern styles. Spending many years of his life in Germany, Kandinsky became an instrumental force in the development of German expressionism.

D. With the outbreak of World War I, Kandinsky left Germany to return to Russia, where he taught and organized numerous artistic activities. He went back to Germany in 1921 and became one of the principal teachers at the Bauhaus school in Weimar, remaining with the school until it was closed by the Nazi regime in 1933. Kandinsky then moved to a Parisian suburb, where he stayed until his death on Dec. 13, 1944.

E. Kandinsky was born in Moscow on Dec. 4, 1866. He studied law and political economy at the University of Moscow, but after a visit in 1895 to an exhibition of French impressionist paintings in Moscow, Kandinsky decided to become a painter.

F. In 1909 Kandinsky helped found the New Artists' Association in Munich.
Kandinsky painted his first abstract watercolor in 1910 and began formulating his important theoretical study, 'Concerning the Spiritual in Art', which was published originally in German in 1912. In this work he examined the psychological effects of color and made comparisons between painting and music.

G. Moving to Munich, Germany, he worked under Anton Azbй and Franz von Stuck, studying impressionist color and art nouveau (an ornamental style of about 1890 to 1910).

H. From the very beginning Kandinsky's own work showed an interest in fantasy.
Between 1900 and 1910 Kandinsky traveled widely, including visits to Paris that put him in contact with the art of Paul Gauguin, the neoimpressionists, and fauvism (a style with aggressive use of brilliant colors). He began developing his ideas concerning the power of pure color and nonrepresentational painting.

Choose any of the painter’s works and describe it characterizing the style of the artist.

9. Watch the video “The Light of the Eternal Flame” about Konstantin Vasiliev’s life and arts.

I. Find the answers to the following questions:

1. When did K. Vasiliev get attracted to drawing?

2. How long did he live? How many painting did he leave as his legacy?

3. When was the Club of Vasiliev’s works lovers founded and what are its main objectives?

4. What troubles the observers’ soul and stimulates their mind when they visit the exhibitions of the painter’s works?

5. In which genres did K. Vasiliev create his works?

6. The artist seems to have been intended to reflect the fate of a particular hero. Who was he?

II. Comment on G.R. Derzhavin’s words: “There are those in Russia whom God dispensed the gift to see the world with their hearts and to convey what they have seen to ordinary people in an extraordinary way. It’s a grave sin not to notice such people”. Why can these words be referred to K. Vasiliev?

III. Write an essay (300 words) expressing your opinion on real and abstract art.

10. Read the text about icon-painting and answer the questions below.

Russian Icon-painting

From the time of Peter the Great’s reforms to the beginning of the 20^th century scarcely anyone showed concern for or interest in icons. At any rate their artistic virtues remained unnoticed. The majority of old icons were covered with metal mountings, age-old repaint and candle soot and because of that it was impossible to see them properly. The discovery of early Russian icon painting is a matter of legitimate pride for the 21^st century.

In all its characteristics icon painting is so unlike the paintings to which modern man is accustomed, that it can be understood only through the teaching about icons formulated many centuries ago by the originators of the Orthodox Church dogmas. After the iconoclastic controversy of the 8^th-9^th century, which disputed the religious function and meaning of icons, the Eastern Church formulated the doctrinal basis for their veneration: since God had assumed material form in the person of Jesus Christ, he also could be represented in pictures. Icons are considered an essential part of church and are given special liturgical veneration.

In our days icons are exhibited on the walls of the museums. But they were not painted to be displayed in this way. They were supposed to be with a man in his daily life – in the place of honour in his log house, attached to a pole by the side of a road or a well, to be carried high above the host setting out on a campaign. The majority were placed inside churches. They were a necessity to the daily church service. There they also served as mediums of instruction for the uneducated faithful through the iconostasis, a screen shielding the altar, covered with icons depicting the scenes from the New Testament, church feasts, and popular saints. In the classical Byzantine and Orthodox tradition, iconography is not a realistic but a symbolical art; its function is to express in line and colour the theological teaching of the church.

Certainly an icon is not a picture. There is no reason to doubt that there existed in Ancient Rus a cult of icon as a sacred object. To ‘buy an icon’ sounded blasphemous. It could be ‘exchanged for money’. Even when decrepit, it could never be destroyed, but hidden in the ground or set free on the water. Icons didn’t ‘burn’ in the fire, but ‘passed away’.

An icon doesn’t represent what the painter sees before him, but a certain prototype. Reverence of an icon stems from reverence for its prototypes. They are worshipped, because they are representation of Christ, the Virgin and the saints. Icons are kissed, they are expected to heal and to work miracles.

Icon painters did not usually invent their subjects as painters do. They followed an iconographic type, developed and established by custom. This is why icons, representing the same subject even when centuries apart, are so alike.

Painters could reveal themselves in colours they chose for their icons. All the paints were made of natural materials: minerals and half-precious gems. Inimitable colours came out of malachite (green), cinnabar (red) azure stone (blue); all shades from yellow to brown were made from clays: sienna, umber and ochre.

Not only the choice of colours was at the artists’ discretion. It wouldn’t be true to say, that they only reproduced what existed before them. Even within the context of traditional biblical subjects and with all due respect for tradition, ancient masters were always able to add something of their own, to enrich and give a fresh interpretation to the canons, to create something new.

Canonical types served as a point of departure. The artistry lay in the interpretation. Each artist, like the singer of folk legends, told his legend in his own way, adding to it something of his own, embroidering the canvas with patterns of his own invention. The art of icon painter is to a degree the art of nuance.

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