BY KENNY McEWAN
Wasilli Kandinsky was born in Moscow in 1866 to a wealthy merchant family. He could have become the law professor that he trained to be. Had he done so, he would probably have disappeared into obscurity. Instead, his name has become associated with some of the most important artistic movements in 20th century history.
In art history, as in all other history, individuals do not exist in isolation from the rest of society, or use their creativity in a vacuum. They observe and absorb what has gone before and what surrounds them. What makes them different is the way in which they use and reform ideas, evolving and combing them with their own to create new ones.
In 1896, an event occurred that was to convince Kandinsky to give up law in favour of art. An exhibition of impressionist paintings came to Moscow. He saw a painting by Monet of haystacks. Kandinsky was stunned by it.
By 1901, Kandinsky was already involved in founding an avant-garde movement in Munich called "Phalanx" (the name comes from a military formation: the line of battle between the old guard and the new). Phalanx was both a school of art and a loose organisation to advance new ideas and bring foreign art to Germany, particularly impressionist and post-impressionist paintings. However, this was a short-lived group and dissolved in 1904.
Kandinsky's ideas for non-representational art emanate from several different sources. During his training as a lawyer and political economist he undertook a field trip to north-eastern Russia, where he came across Russian folk art.
The carved houses and brightly coloured "naive" art style engaged his imagination, so much so that his early paintings combined the "Art Nouveau" of the Phalanx group with the folk art he encountered. He created paintings that were bold and intense that owed much to the French "Fauvists" (meaning wild beasts), who used non-natural colours to create wonderfully vivid paintings. Matisse is the most famous proponent of this style.
Another component of the Kandinsky jigsaw was his love for music. He could play the cello well and had tried his hand at composing. Music is little more than a collection of notes, however certain combinations are capable of creating beautiful sounds that can elicit a wide range of emotions in the listener. Kandinsky believed that this concept also applied to painting. He thought that a circle of a particular colour touching a triangle at a specific juncture could evoke the same response in the viewer as Michelangelo's depiction of the hand of God touching Adam.
Kandinsky may have been aided in linking music to art by a condition called Synaesthesia, which meant that he could "see" music. He associated certain with certain sounds and notes. People who have this neurological condition have an overlap of sensory input, in which one form of input creates a reaction in another sensory department of the brain. Later, when Kandinsky produced paintings of pure abstraction, he called them "compositions" or "improvisations".
Between 1904 and 1911, Kandinsky continued to develop his ideas. More and more, he reduced the recognisable subjects in his paintings. An example of a "halfway house" towards pure abstraction can be found in his painting "Cossacks". Linking his Russian background to line and colour, this painting looks abstract but on closer examination recognisable shapes are revealed.
In the bottom right-hand corner can be seen the Cossacks with their red hats and lances, another Cossack is in the top left with a sabre in his hand. Other shapes, such as a horse and a fortified building, can also be made out. Overall, there is an unmistakable tension and air of violence in the painting. Birds fly overhead, perhaps carrion crow; long spikes are held aloft, as if in war formation. The painting's title is also suggestive of violence and battle.
In this period, Kandinsky formed a group called Blue Rider. It was a loose organisation of German-based expressionists, including Paul Klee and Franz Marc, both highly influential painters. Aside from art, they shared deeply held spiritual values, which they wanted to show in their work.
Kandinsky was a believer in Theosophy, a mixture of various eastern and western religious philosophies. At first, the Blue Riders expected WWI to sweep away the old ways and replace them with a new spiritual order. But as the horrible reality of the war unfolded, and the death toll mounted, Kandinsky and the others realised that their hoped for "brotherhood of man" would not occur.
The war meant Kandinsky had to return to Russia from Germany. While he was not a communist, he had expressed disapproval of the brutal Tsarist regime. When the October 1917 socialist revolution triumphed, placing the Russian workers and peasants in power, Kandinsky, like many others of the privileged classes, could have fled. But not only did he stay, he undertook huge organisational tasks for the revolutionary Bolshevik government. This included running the theatre and film section of the new department of fine art. He taught painting at the State Studio for Fine Art and edited the magazine Iskusstvo (Art).
In 1920, Kandinsky became director of the Institute of Artistic Culture and established the Russian Academy of Artistic Sciences. Not surprisingly, this period produced his smallest artistic output. What he did produce was pure abstract: circles, lines, colours and shapes criss-crossing one another.
Unfortunately, despite the mass of work he did for the fledgling Soviet government, his style of painting was out of step with the new concepts of painting that were developing in the Soviet Union, such as constructivism. This style rejected art that did not have a "purpose" as bourgeois. This idea eventually led to a sterile school of art called "socialist realism", which flourished under Joseph Stalin.
Kandinsky was eventually forced to leave Russia and he returned once more to Germany. This time, he joined the hugely influential Bauhaus, a school of architecture and applied arts, which was the centre of modern design in Germany from 1919 to 1933.
Bauhaus' approach to art and architecture was unique. It linked up the foremost modern artists with traditional craftspeople to create a new synthesis. Fine artists would give inspiration and stimulus and craftspeople would give practical classes. Here Kandinsky continued to develop his art and produced a book to further expand on his theories.
But the days of this significant school were numbered by the menacing growth of the German Nazis. As the Nazi movement grew, students were arrested and staff who were found to be politically unacceptable were sacked. Among them was Kandinsky, who finally settled in Paris where he spent his remaining days. Bauhaus eventually closed with many of its works of art burnt by the Nazis, along with other "decadent" art.
Abstract art is not everyone's cup of tea. Often, it seems indecipherable, especially in comparison to art forms that are immediately recognisable. However, there is no doubt of the power and energy that such paintings can produce.
Lines, angles and colours, crossing and interjecting, explode across the canvas creating a beauty and intensity of their own. Kandinsky, through his ideas, energy and drive, ensured that it took its place among the great art movements of the last century and more importantly opened the door for others to follow.
Works by Kandinsky can be found at the Tate Modern Gallery and the Tate Library in London, and the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh. Good web sites with biographies and pictures include <http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/kandinsky_wassily.html> and <http://www.ocain.com/kandinsky.html>.
[From Frontline, the magazine of the International Socialist Movement, Scotland. Visit <http://www.redflag.org.uk>.]
From Green Left Weekly, December 4, 2002.
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