Wassily Kandinsky

This book contains many photographic examples and drawing from Kandinsky’s works which offer the demonstration of his theoretical observations, and which allow the reader to reproduce in him the inner obviousness provided that he takes the time to look at those pictures with care, that he let them acting on his own sensibility and that he let vibrating the sensible and spiritual strings of his soul. Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos, philosopher, politician, Enlightenment thinker. This is the work of the painter to listen to know these effects in order to produce paintings which are not just the effect of a random process, but the fruit of an authentic work and the result of an effort toward the inner beauty. Severo Ochoa, 1959 Nobel Prize winner for Medicine. The above of the basic plane corresponds to the looseness and to lightness, while the below evokes the condensation and heaviness. Letizia, Princess of Asturias, a native of Oviedo and wife of Felipe, Prince of Asturias. Every part of the basic plane possesses an proper affective coloration which will influence on the tonality of the pictorial elements that will be drawn on it, which contributes to the richness of the composition which results from their juxtaposition on the canvas. Fernando Alonso, Formula 1 racing driver, 2005 World Champion.

Kandinsky even considers the basic plane as a living being that the artist "fertilizes" and of which he feels the "breathing". Leopoldo Alas, 19th century author of La Regenta, a seminal work in the Spanish literary canon. The artist possesses the intuition of this inner effect of the canvas format and dimensions, which he chooses according to the tonality he wants to give to his work. There are also services to Barcelona, Salamanca, León, Valladolid, La Coruña, Bilbao, Seville, San Sebastián, Paris, Brussels or Nice, to name just a few. This tonality is determined by the relative importance of theses horizontals and verticals lines, the horizontals giving a calm and cold tonality to the basic plane, while the verticals give it a calm and warm tonality. It links Avilés, Gijón, Oviedo and Mieres with Madrid, several times a day. The basic plane is in general rectangular or square, thus it is composed of horizontals and verticals lines which delimitate it and define it as an autonomous being which will serve as support to the painting communicating it its affective tonality. There is also a bus service within and without the region, run by the ALSA company.

The angle formed by the angular line possesses as well an inner sonority which is warm and close to yellow for an acute angle (triangle), cold and similar to blue for an obtuse angle (circle) and similar to red for a right angle (square). FEVE rail company links also the center of the region with Eastern and Western Asturias. A force which deploys itself without obstacle as the one which produces a straight line corresponds to lyricism, while several forces which confront or annoy each other form a drama. Major stops are the regional capital, Oviedo, and the main coastal city, Gijón. A diagonal possesses by consequence a more or less warm or cold tonality according to its inclination according to the horizontal and to the vertical. Spain's national RENFE rail network also serves Asturias well; trains regularly depart to and from the Spanish interior. The subjective effect produced by a line depends on its orientation : the horizontal line corresponds to the ground on which man rests and moves, to flatness, it possesses a dark and cold affective tonality similar with black or blue, while the vertical line corresponds to height which offers no support, it possesses on the opposite a luminous and warm tonality close from white and yellow. Eastern Asturias is now quite easily reached from Santander.

A plane can be obtained by condensation, from a line rotated around one of its ends. Internal Spanish carriers such as Iberia and Spanair also serve Asturias, direct from Madrid and Barcelona, Brussels, London, Paris, Seville and others. The produced linear forms can be of several types : a straight line which results from an unique force applied in a single direction, an angular line which results from the alternation of two forces with a different direction, or a curved or wave-like line produced by the effect of two forces acting simultaneously. A UK-based international carrier, Easyjet, began daily flights to the airport in March 2005. The line is the product of a force, it is a point on which a living force has been applied in a given direction, the force applied on the pencil or on the paint brush by the hand of the artist. Asturias is served by Ranon Airport (OVD), which is about an hour's road journey from Oviedo, near the northwest coast and the industrial town of Avilés. It can be alone and isolated or on the opposite put in resonance with other points or with lines. These subsidies are lately in doubt, given the expansion of the Union in 2004 to include the poorer states of the former Communist bloc.

The point is the most concise form, but according to its placement on the basic plane it will take a different tonality. Asturias has benefited extensively since 1986 from European Union investment in roads and other essential infrastructure, though there has also been some controversy regarding how these funds are spent, for example, on miners' pensions. This form can be a square, a triangle, a circle, like a star or even more complex. Large out-of-town retail parks have opened near the region's largest cities (Gijón and Oviedo), whilst the ever-present Spanish construction industry appears to continue to thrive. So the point used by the painter is not a geometric point, it is not a mathematical abstraction, it possesses a certain extension, a form and a color. Regional economic growth is below the broader Spanish rate, though in recent years growth in service industries has helped reduce Asturias's high rate of unemployment. The point is in the practice a small stain of color put by the artist on the canvas. The steel industry is now in decline, as is mining, as a result of competition from Eastern Europe, high costs of production, and declines in global steel demand.

He doesn’t analyze them on an objective and exterior point of view, but on the point of view of their inner effect on the living subjectivity of the observer who looks them and let them acting on his sensibility. The industry created many jobs which resulted in significant migration from other provinces in Spain, mainly Extremadura, Andalucía and Castilla y León. Kandinsky analyses in this writing the geometrical elements which compose every painting, namely the point and the line, as well as the physical support and the material surface on which the artist draws or paints and which he calls the basic plane or BP. The then state-owned ENSIDESA company is now part of the privatised ARCELOR Group. The red and the green form the third big contrast, the orange and the purple the fourth one. The main regional industry, though, is steel: in the times of Francisco Franco´s dictatorship, it was one of the most powerful in the world. Mixed with blue, it moves away from man to give the purple, which is cooled red. Production of milk and its derivatives has also been traditionally strong, with products from the Central Lechera Asturiana being exported all over Spain.

Mixed with yellow, it gains in warmth and gives the orange which possesses an irradiating movement on the surroundings. For many centuries the backbone of the Asturian economy was coal mining, steel production and fishing. Mixed with black, it leads to brown which is a hard color. Asturian cheeses, especially Cabrales, are also famous throughout Spain and beyond; Asturias is often called "the land of cheeses" (el pais de los quesos) due to the product's diversity and quality in this region. The red is a warmth color, very living, lively and agitated, it possesses an immense force, it is a movement in oneself. Apple groves foster the production of the traditional alcoholic drink, a natural cider (sidra). The gray corresponds to immobility without hope; it tends to despair when it becomes dark and regains little hope when it lightens. The most famous regional dish is Fabada Asturiana, a rich stew made with large white beans (fabes), shoulder of pork (lacón), black sausage (morcilla), spicy sausage (chorizo) and saffron (azafrán).

The mixing of white with black leads to gray, which possesses no active force and whose affective tonality is near that of green. Asturias is especially known for its seafood. That’s why any other color resonates so strongly on its neighbors. VIRTUAL TOURS (with over 450 photographs) http://www.asturiasenimagenes.com/. The black is a nothingness without possibility, it is an eternal silence without hope, it corresponds to death. Best viewed at low tide. The white acts like a deep and absolute silence full of possibilities. The unusual rock formation on the beach at Buelna village: east of Llanes.

The white and the black form the second big contrast, which is static. The coastal way (senda costera) between Pendueles and Llanes: This partly-paved nature route takes in some of Asturias' most spectacular coastal scenery, such as the noisy bufones (large water spouts created naturally by the erosion of the sea) and the Playa de Ballota. Clarity is a tendency to the white and obscurity a tendency to the black. La Mesa (The Table): an unusually-shaped peak above the village of Tuiza de Arriba, high in the Ubiñas mountain range south of Oviedo. The mixing of blue with yellow gives the total immobility and the calm, the green. The Dobra River: south of Cangas de Onís, famous for its unusual colour and natural beauty. The blue is the typically celestial color which evokes a deep calm. Of particular interest in this exemplary settlement are the traditional horreo grain silos, raised on stilts so as to keep field mice from getting at the grain.

The yellow is the typically terrestrial color whose violence can be painful and aggressive. Ceceda village: east of Oviedo along the N634 road. The yellow possesses an eccentric movement and the blue a concentric movement, a yellow surface seems to get closer to us, while a blue surface seems to move away. Other places of interest are.... The yellow and the blue form the first big contrast, which is dynamic. The Asturian coast: especially the beaches in and around the summer resort of Llanes, and the Playa del Silencio near Cudillero fishing village. The warmth is a tendency to yellow, the coldness a tendency to blue. The Reconquista and eventual unification of all Spain is therefore said to have started in this very location.

The first obvious properties we can see when we look at isolated color and let it act alone; it is on one side the warmth or the coldness of the colored tone, and on the other side the clarity or the obscurity of the tone. The shrine to the Virgin Mary of Covadonga and the mountain lakes (los lagos), near Cangas de Onís: Legend has it that in the 8th century, the Virgin blessed Asturian Christian forces with a well-timed signal to attack Spain's Moorish conquerors, thereby taking the invaders by surprise. The art work is born from the inner necessity of the artist in a mysterious, enigmatic and mystic way, and then it acquires an autonomous life; it becomes an independent subject animated by a spiritual breath. Weather permitting, it can be viewed clearly from Camarmeña village, near Las Arenas de Cabrales. This inner necessity is the right of the artist to an unlimited freedom, but this freedom becomes a crime if it is not founded on such a necessity. The Picos de Europa National park, and other parts of the Asturian mountain range: The most famous peak in the park is the Picu Urriellu, also known as Naranjo de Bulnes (2519 m), a molar-shaped mountain which glows orange in the evening sun, hence its name. Every form is the delimitation of a surface by another one; it possesses an inner content which is the effect it produces on the one who looks at it attentively. Santa María del Naranco and San Miguel de Lillo, a prerromanic church and a prerromanic castle build by the first Asturian kings are held in the Naranco mountain.

He defines it as the principle of the efficient contact of the form with the human soul. Oviedo, the capital city of Asturias: Nowadays is a cosmopolite city where art, culture and tradition are found in the town center. The inner necessity is for Kandinsky the principle of the art and the foundation of forms and colors' harmony. Major attractions include.... But this effect can be much deeper and cause an emotion and a vibration of the soul, or an inner resonance which is a purely spiritual effect, by which the color touches the soul. Annual rainfall is above 900 mm in all the region (Gijón-Xixón, 971 mm), increasing as we move from the coast to the interior, and reaching its peak in Picos de Europa ( Amieva, 1800 mm). When we look at colors on the painter's palette, a double effect happens : a purely physical effect on the eye, charmed by the beauty of colors firstly, which provokes a joyful impression as when we eat a delicacy. Both rain and sunshine are regular weather features of Asturian winters.

During decadent periods, souls fall to the bottom of the Triangle and men only search for the external success and ignore purely spiritual forces. The cold is especially felt in the mountains, where snow is present from November till May. It is a spiritual Triangle which moves forward and rises slowly, even if it sometimes remains immobile. Winters are fairly mild but with some very cold snaps. The point of the Triangle is constituted only by some individuals who bring the sublime bread to men. Summers are generally humid and warm, with considerable sunshine, but also some rain. Kandinsky compares the spiritual life of the humanity to a large Triangle similar to a pyramid; the artist has the task and the mission of leading others to the top by the exercise of his talent. The climate of Asturias, as with the rest of northwest Spain, is more varied than that of southern parts of the country.

These are not scientific and objective observations, but inner observations radically subjective and purely phenomenological which is a matter of what the French philosopher Michel Henry calls the absolute subjectivity or the absolute phenomenological life. Most of Asturias' beaches are sandy, clean and bordered by steep cliffs, on top of which it is not unusual to see grazing livestock. So it is a purely subjective form of experience that everyone can do and repeat taking the time to look at his paintings and letting acting the forms and the colors on his own living sensibility. Notable examples include the Playa del Silencio (Beach of Silence) near the fishing village of Cudillero (west of Gijón), as well as the many beaches surrounding the summer resort of Llanes, such as the Barro, Ballota and Torimbia (the latter a predominantly nudist beach). The analysis made by Kandinsky on forms and on colors don’t result from simple arbitrary ideas associations, but from the inner experience of the painter who has passed years creating abstract paintings of an incredible sensorial richness, working on forms and with colors, observing for a long time and tirelessly his own paintings and those of other artists, noting simply their subjective and pathetic effect on the very high sensibility to colors of his artist and poet soul. The Asturian coastline is extensive, with hundreds of beaches, coves and natural sea caves. Works by Kandinsky have been recently sold for as much as US$25 million. Perhaps surprisingly, climate change appears to have benefited the ski stations in recent times: relatively heavy snowfalls sustained the stations in the winters of 2003/2004 and 2004/2005.

As a synaesthete, he named some of his paintings "improvisations" and "compositions" as if they were works of music and not painting. In this era of climate change snow fall is unpredictable, but the skiing season generally runs from December to April inclusive. Along with Piet Mondriaan and Kazimir Malevich, Kandinsky is considered a pioneer in abstract art (to the extent that a Monty Python song refers to him as having "laid down (its) axioms"). Asturias has two impressive ski stations, San Isidro and Pajares, both of which are easily accessed by road from the capital, Oviedo. All the works in her possession have been legated to the Centre Georges Pompidou, in Paris, where we can see the largest collection of his paintings. The Cantabrian mountains offer opportunities for activities such as climbing, walking, skiing and caving, and extend some 200 kilometres in total, as far as Galicia province to the west of Asturias, and Cantabria province to the east. From the death of Wassily Kandinsky and during thirty years, Nina Kandinsky has never stopped to diffuse the message and to divulge the work of her husband. Other notable features of this predominantly-limestone range are the Parque Natural de Redes in the central east, the central Ubiñas south of Oviedo, and the Parque Natural de Somiedo in the west.

One should not be content with a brief and casual impression, or make a coarse identification of the forms used by the artist; forms which have been subtly harmonized and placed so as to resonate with the observer's own soul. The Picos de Europa National Park forms the eastern range and contains the highest and arguably most spectacular mountains, rising to 2648 metres at the Torrecerredo peak. In Kandinsky’s works, some characteristics are obvious while certain touches are more discrete and veiled; that’s to say they reveal themselves only progressively to those who make the effort to deepen their connection with his work. The Cantabrian mountain range (Cordillera Cantábrica) is Asturias' natural border with León province to the south. The small squares of colors and the colored bands seem to stand out against the black background of Composition X, as stars' fragments or filaments, while enigmatic hieroglyphs with pastel tones cover the large maroon mass, which seems to float in the upper left corner of the canvas. The key features of Asturian geography are its rugged cliffy coast and its mountainous interior. Composition IX is a painting with highly contrasted powerful diagonals and whose central form give the impression of a human embryo in the womb. Since 1999 the President of the Government of Asturias has been Vicente Álvarez Areces, of the Spanish Socialist Worker's Party (PSOE).

In 1936 and 1939 he painted his two last major compositions; canvases particularly elaborate and slowly ripped that he hadn't produced for many years. The Asturian regional government holds comprehensive competencies in important areas such as health, education and protection of the environment. This period corresponds, in fact, to a vast synthesis of his previous work, of which he used all elements, even enriching them. In 1982 Asturias became an Autonomous Community within the decentralized territorial structure established by the Constitution of 1978. He also used sand mixed with colour to give a granular texture to his paintings. The province's name was restored fully after the return of democracy to Spain, in 1977. He used original colour compositions which evoke Slavonic popular art, and which look like precious watermark works. With Franco eventually gaining control of all Spain, Asturias - traditionally linked to the Spanish crown - was known merely as the 'Province of Oviedo' from 1936 until Franco's death in 1975.

Biomorphic forms with supple and non-geometric outlines appear in his paintings; forms which suggest externally microscopic organisms but which always express the artist's inner life. As a result, Asturias remained loyal to the democratic republican government during the war, and was the scene of an extraordinary defence in extreme terrain, the Battle of El Mazuco. He lived in a small apartment, and created his work in a studio constructed in the living room. Troops under the command of Francisco Franco were brought from the North African colonies to put down the rebellion and a ferocious oppression followed. In Paris, he was quite isolated, since abstract painting, particularly geometric abstract painting, was not recognized : the artistic fashions being mainly impressionism and cubism. In 1934, the left-wing workers' movement fought the right-wing government of the Second Spanish Republic in the so-called 'Revolution of Asturias'. Kandinsky then left Germany and settled in Paris. Like all Spain, Asturias played its part in the events that led up to and include the Spanish Civil War.

The school pursued its activities in Berlin until its dissolution in July 1933. The heritage of these wealthy families can still be seen in Asturias today: many large 'modernista' villas are dotted across the region, as well as cultural institutions such as free schools and public libraries. Following a fierce slander campaign from the Nazis, the Bauhaus closed at Dessau in 1932. These entrepreneurs were known collectively as 'Indianos', for having visited and made their fortunes in the West Indies and beyond. In front of the hostility of the right political parties, the Bauhaus left Weimar and settled in Dessau from 1925. At the same time there was significant migration to the Americas; those who succeeded overseas often returned to their native land much wealthier. This simple visual identification of forms and of the main colored masses present on the canvas only corresponds to a first approach of the inner reality of the work whose right appreciation necessitates a much deeper observation- not only of forms and colors involved in the painting, but also of their relation, their absolute position and their relative disposition on the canvas, of their whole and reciprocal harmony. The Industrial Revolution came to Asturias with the discovery and systematic exploitation of coal and iron resources.

The large two meter width painting that is Yellow – red – blue (1925) consists of a number of main forms: a vertical yellow rectangle, a slightly inclined red cross and a large dark blue circle, while a multitude of straight black or sinuous lines, arcs of circles, monochromatic circles and scattering of colored checkerboards contribute to its delicate complexity. Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos, a polimath and prominent reformer and politician of the late 18th century, was born in the seaside town of Gijón (Xixón in the Asturian language). The freedom of which is characterised in each of his works by the treatment of planes rich in colors and magnificent gradations as in the painting Yellow – red – blue (1925), where Kandinsky shows his distance from constructivism and suprematism movements whose influence was increasing at this time. The renowned thinker Benito de Feijoo settled in the Benedictine Monastery of San Vicente, Oviedo. This period was a period of intense production. During the 18th Century, Asturias was one of the centres of the Spanish Enlightenment. Geometrical elements took on increasing importance in his teaching as well as in his painting, particularly circle, half-circle, the angle, straight lines and curves. After the fading of the 'Regnum Astorum' (Kingdom of Asturias), this historic land survived as a marginal territory in the north of Spain, although it provided the Spanish court with high-ranking aristocrats and played an important role in the colonisation of the Americas.

The development of his works on forms study, particularly on point and different forms of lines, lead to the publication of his second major theoretical book Point and Line to Plane in 1926. For this reason since the 14th century the heir to the Spanish throne automatically takes the title Prince of Asturias, much as the heir to the British throne is the Prince of Wales and Duke of Cornwall. Kandinsky taught the basic design class for beginners, the course on advanced theory as well as conducting painting classes and a workshop where he completed his colors theory with new elements of form psychology. Due to its situation and difficult terrain, the territories along the north coast of Spain were never part of Islamic Spain; the north served as the nucleus of a small Christian enclave, the Kingdom of Asturias, which was linked to Spain's visigoth kingdom. Its objectives included the merging of plastic arts with applied arts, reflected in its teaching methods based on the theoretical and practical application of the plastic arts synthesis. . The Bauhaus was an architecture and innovative art school. Asturias is bordered to the east by Cantabria, to the south by Castilla y León, to the west by Galicia, and to the north by the Cantabrian Sea.

The next year, the Soviets have officially forbidden all forms of abstract art, having judged it as harmful for socialist ideals. See also List of municipalities in Asturias, Comarcas of Asturias.. In 1921 Kandinsky receives the mission to go to Germany to attend the Bauhaus of Weimar, on the invitation of its founder, the architect Walter Gropius. Other towns include Mieres, Langreo, Pola de Siero, Cangas de Onís, Cangas del Narcea, Grado, Pola de Lena, Pola de Laviana, El Entrego, Villaviciosa, and Llanes. In 1916 he meets Nina Andreievskaia who in the following year, becomes his wife. The capital is Oviedo, and other noteworthy cities are the major seaport Gijón, the largest city in Asturias, and the industrial town of Avilés. He paints little during this period. It is situated on the north coast facing the Cantabrian Sea (Mar Cantábrico, the Spanish name for the Bay of Biscay).

He devotes his time to artistic teaching with a program based on forms and colors analysis, as well as participating in the organization of the artistic culture Institute at Moscow. The Principality of Asturias (Asturian: Principau d'Asturies or Asturies) has an extensive history and is an autonomous community within the country of Spain. During the years 1918 to 1921, Kandinsky deals with the cultural development politic of Russia, he collaborates in the domains of art pedagogy and museum reforms. He believed that color could be used in a painting as something autonomous and apart from a visual description of an object or other form. Kandinsky's writing in The Blue Rider Almanac and the treatise On the Spiritual In Art, which was released at almost the same time, served as both a defense and promotion of abstract art, as well as an appraisal that all forms of art were equally capable of reaching a level of spirituality.

More of each were planned, but the outbreak of World War I in 1914 ended these plans and sent Kandinsky home to Russia via Switzerland and Sweden. The group released an almanac, also called The Blue Rider and held two exhibits. Kandinsky then moved to form a new group The Blue Rider (Der Blaue Reiter) with like minded artists such as Franz Marc. The group was unable to integrate the more radical approach of those like Kandinsky with more conventional ideas of art and the group dissolved in late 1911.

He helped to found the Munich New Artists' Association in and became its president in 1909. In addition to painting Kandinsky developed his voice as an art theorist. Kandinsky used sometimes musical terms to designate his works : he called many of his most spontaneous paintings "improvisations", while he entitled "compositions" some others much more elaborated and worked at length, a term which resonated in him like a prayer. The influence of music has been very important on the birth of abstract art, as it is abstract by nature and as it doesn’t try to represent vainly the exterior world but simply to express in an immediate way the inner feelings of the human soul.

The paintings of this period are composed of large and very expressive colored masses evaluate independently from forms and lines which serve no longer to delimitate them or to bring them out but which combine between them, are superimposed and overlap in a very free way to form paintings of an extraordinary force. The broad use of color in The Blue Mountain, illustrate Kandinsky's move towards art in which the color itself is presented independently of form. The face, clothing, and saddles of the riders are each of a single color, and neither they or the walking figures display any real detail. A procession of some sort with three riders and several others crosses at the bottom.

A mountain of blue is flanked by two broad trees, one yellow, and one red. The Blue Mountain (1908 – 1909) painted at this time shows more of his trend towards pure abstraction. From 1906 to 1908 Kandinsky spent a great deal of time travelling across Europe, until he came to live in the small Bavarian town of Murnau. In and of itself The Blue Rider is not exceptional in that regard when compared to contemporary painters, but it does show the direction that Kandinsky would take only a few years later.

Kandinsky shows the rider more as a series of colors than of specific details. Indeed, some believe that a second figure, a child perhaps, is being held by the rider though this could just as easily be another shadow from a solitary rider. The Blue Rider in the painting is prominent, but not clearly defined, and the horse has an unnatural gait (which Kandinsky must have known). In the foreground are more amorphous blue shadows, presumably the counterparts of the fall trees in the background.

The rider's cloak is a medium view, and the shadow cast is a darker blue. Perhaps the most important of Kandinsky's paintings from the decade of the 1900s was The Blue Rider (1903) which shows a small cloaked figure on a speeding horse rushing through a rocky meadow. Yet the horse is muted, while the leaves in the trees, the town, and the reflections in the river glisten with spots of color and brightness. Riding Couple (1907) depicts a man on horseback, holding a woman with tenderness and care as they ride past a Russian town with luminous walls across a river.

An exception is Sunday, Old Russia (1904) where Kandinsky recreates a highly colorful (and no doubt fanciful) view of peasants and nobles before the walls of a town. For the most part, however, Kandinsky's paintings did not emphasize any human figures. This changes at the beginning of the 20th Century and much remains of the many landscapes and towns that he painted, using broad swathes of color but recognizable forms. Unfortunately very little exists of his work from this period, though presumably it was extensive.

Kandinsky's time at art school was helped by the fact that he was older and more settled than the other students and he began to emerge as a true art theorist in addition to being a painter. Kandinsky's book 'Concerning the Spiritual In Art' (1910) and 'Point and Line to Plane' (1926) echoed this basic Theosophical tenet. The creative aspect of the forms is expressed by the descending series of circles, triangles, and squares. Theosophical theory postulates that creation is a geometrical progression, beginning with a point.

Blavatsky (1831-91), the most important exponent of Theosophy in modern times. P. Kandinsky was also spiritually influenced by H. Also in 1896, prior to leaving Moscow, he saw an exhibit of Monet and was particularly taken with a depiction of a haystack which, to him, had a powerful sense of color almost independent of the object itself.

It was not until 1896, at the age of 30, Kandinsky gave up a promising career teaching law and economics to enroll in art school in Munich. Kandinsky would write a few years later that 'Color is the keyboard, the eyes are the hammers, the soul is the piano with the strings'. His study of the folk art in the region, in particular the use of bright colors on a dark background was reflected in his early work. He tells in Looks on the past that he had the impression to move into a painting when he entered in the houses or the churches decorated with the most shimming colors.

In 1889 he was part of an ethnographic group that traveled to the Vologda region north of Moscow. The fascination with color continued as he grew up in Moscow, although he seems to have made no attempt to study art. This is probably due to his synaesthesia which allowed him to quite literally hear as well as see color. As a child he would later recall being fascinated and unusually stimulated with color.

Kandinsky's youth and life in Moscow brought inspiration from a variety of sources. Kandinsky biographer Messer divides his art into three periods:. Artistic scholar Hajo Duechting has divided Kandinsky's artistic development into six periods:. He called this devotion to inner beauty, fervor of the spirit and deep spiritual desire inner necessity, which was a central aspect of his art.

The creation by Kandinsky of purely abstract work did not arrive as an abrupt change, but rather as the fruit of a long development and maturation of intense theoretical thought based on his personal experience of painting. . He died at Neuilly-sur-Seine in 1944. He lived the rest of his life there, becoming a French citizen in 1939.

At that time he moved to France. There he was a teacher at the Bauhaus from 1922 until it was closed by the Nazis in 1933. Being in conflict with official theories on art, he returned to Germany in 1921. He went back to Moscow in 1918 after the Russian Revolution.

In 1896 he settled in Munich and studied at the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich. Although quite successful in his profession, he started painting studies (life-drawing, sketching and anatomy) at the age of 30. He enrolled at the University of Moscow and chose law and economics. Kandinsky was born in Moscow but spent his childhood in Odessa.

One of the most important 20th-century artists, alongside Picasso and Matisse, he is credited with painting the first abstract works in the history of modern art. Wassily Kandinsky (Russian: Василий Кандинский, first name spelled as [vassi:li]) (December 4, 1866 (O.S., December 16, 1866 N.S.) – December 13, 1944) was a Russian-born French painter and art theorist. In such a way that the Kandinskian equation, to which we have alluded to, can be written in reality as follows : Interior = interiority = invisible = life = pathos = abstract." (Michel Henry, Seeing the invisible, on Kandinsky). "Kandinsky calls abstract the content that painting must express, that’s to say this invisible life that we are.

When on the opposite two forces are in presence and enter in conflict, as this is the case with the curve or with the angular line, we are in the drama." (Michel Henry, Seeing the invisible, on Kandinsky). That’s because the straight line proceeds from the action of a unique force with no opposition that its domain is lyricism. The pathos of a force entering in action and whose victorious effort is annoyed by no obstacle, that’s lyricism. "Kandinsky has been fascinated by the expression power of linear forms.

In this way the painted work is coupled with an ensemble of texts that enlighten it and that make at the same time of Kandinsky one of the major theorists of the art." (Michel Henry, Seeing the invisible, on Kandinsky). "[Kandinsky] has not only produced a work whose sensorial magnificence and invention richness eclipses those of its most remarkable contemporaries ; he has given moreover an explicit theory of abstract painting, exposing its principles with the highest precision and the highest clarity. The artist is the hand that plays, touching one key then another to cause vibration of the soul." -Wassily Kandinsky. "Color is the keyboard, the eyes are the harmonies, the soul is the piano with many strings.

The dead matter is a living spirit." (article entitled On the question of the form). It constitutes a cosmos of things exerting a spiritual action. "The world is full of resonances. They brought me a joy which shattered me until the bottom of the soul, and which reached until ecstasy." (Looks on the past).

These impressions renewed every sunny day. […] Rendering this hour seemed the biggest, the most impossible of the happiness for an artist. […] The sun dissolves all Moscow in a spot which, as a frenzied tuba, makes entered into vibration all the inner being, the whole soul. The sun is already low and has reached its highest force, which it has searched all the day, to which it has aspired all the day.

"In this painting, I was in fact in quest for a certain hour, which was and which remains always the most beautiful hour of the day in Moscow. The variation in lines depends upon the number of these forces and upon their combinations." (Point and line to plane). […] The forces coming from without which transform the point into a line, can be very diverse. Here, the leap out of the static to the dynamic occurs.

It is created by movement – specifically through the destruction of the intense self-contained repose of the point. It is the track made by the moving point; that is, its product. "The geometric line is an invisible thing. It belongs to language and signifies silence." (Point and line to plane).

The geometric point has, therefore, been given its material form, in the first instance, in writing. […] Thus we look upon the geometric point as the ultimate and most singular union of silence and speech. Considered in terms of substance, it equals zero. Therefore, it must be defined as an incorporeal thing.

"The geometric point is an invisible thing. These two ways are not arbitrary, but are bound up with the phenomenon – developing out of its nature and characteristics : Externally – or – inwardly." (Point and line to plane). "Every phenomenon can be experienced in two ways. Is beautiful what is inwardly beautiful." (On the Spiritual In Art).

"Is beautiful what proceeds from an inner necessity of the soul. It is the language which speaks to the soul, in its proper form, of things which are the daily bread of the soul and which it can receive only under this form." (On the Spiritual In Art). "Painting is an art, and the art in its whole is not a vain objets creation which get lost in the void, but a power which has a goal and must serve to the evolution and to the refinement of the human soul, to the moving of the Triangle. The artist which lets its gifts unemployed is the lazy servant." (On the Spiritual In Art).

The innate feeling of the artist is like the talent of the Gospel which must not be buried. As a neglected body which becomes weak and finally impotent, the spirit becomes weaker. "But, as well as the body, the spirit fortifies itself and develops itself by the exercise. Late Period: from the 1930s until 1944.

Middle Period: from the early 1920s until the early 1930s. Early Period: approximately 1900 to 1914. Biomorphic Abstraction (Paris 1934–1944). Point and Line to Plane (The Bauhaus 1922–1933).

Russian Intermezzo (1914–1921). Breakthrough to the Abstract (The Blue Rider 1911–1914). Metamorphosis (Munich 1896–1911). Beginnings (Moscow 1866–1896).