Kandinsky had already drawn attention to the analogies between art, nature and technology in his Bauhaus lessons. But he did not open his own use of ex-pressive form to these insights until after arriving in Paris. These newly acquired resources of form were inspired by the most varied sources, from invertebratesea creatures,the smallest of organisms and zoological prototypes to the embry-ological forms that populate many of his works in his late period between 1934 and 1940. His sources of inspiration included the paintings of his fellow artistsin Paris as well as encyclopaedias and biological works such as Ernst Haeckel's Kunstformen der Natur (Art Forms in Nature) and Karl Blossfeldt's famous photo collection Urformen der Natur (Prototypes in Nature).
Although Kandinsky was irritat... (查看原文)
One of Kandinsky's most successful paintings of this period is Dreamy Im-provisation (ill.p.45). Shapes of various colours surge and soar around a blue centre on a diffuse ground colour. They are accompanied by the "second voices," linear symbols and a scattering of graphic elements which appear on equal terms as completely independent contrapuntal shapes alongside the freely applied col-ours. The entire composition radiates a serene, peaceful atmosphere far removed from the convulsive spasms of other "Improvisations." In this picture Kandinsky walked the thin line between the extremes of "dead" abstraction: "This way lies today between two dangers. On the one hand is the totally arbitrary application of colour to geometrical form - pure patterning. On the other hand is the more naturalist... (查看原文)
According to Kandinsky, the nightmare of materialism
oppresses the soul of modern man— an idea that was in fact shared by many thinkers and artists of Kandinsky's time. Kandinsky wrote Concerning the Spiritual in Art in a mood influenced by idealist German philosophy(Kant,Fichteand Schelling), as well as by the usual anti-positivist stance held in artists'circles.The essential insight into man's new spiritual consciousness and the sense of a new age, linked Kandinsky to Rudolf Steiner and the newly founded Anthropo-sophical Society.Religion and the occult were not just peripheral interests for.... (查看原文)
The expressiveness with which Kandinsky analysed form distinguished him from the Russian Constructivists. A statement he made some time later makes the point:"The meeting of the pointed angle of a triangle and a circle is not less effective thanthe finger of God touching Adam's finger in Michelangelo."
In Kandinsky's work during this period the turbulent, glaring world of formand colour gives way to cool, rational composition based on the stricter analysisof form he was able to try out at the Russian art workshops. In a survey Kandinsky finally and emphatically disassociated himself from his Constructivist critics:"Just because an artist uses abstract'methods, it does not mean that he is anabstract'artist. It doesn't even mean that he is an artist. Just as there are enoughdead triangles(be... (查看原文)
All the tormenting uncertainty, the tensions he had quelled with his reason, broke out again. He only needed one more slight push to give in to the temptations of art, this time for good. As an academic with eclectic interests Kandinsky also followed the developments in other disciplines with unwavering keenness. The discovery of radioactivity by the French physicist Antoine Henri Becquerel in 1896 shook the foundations of the scientific conception of the world at that time - Kandinsky's included:
"In my soul the decay of the atom was the same as the decay of the whole world. Suddenly the sturdiest walls collapsed. Everything became uncertain, unsteady, and soft. It would not have amazed me, if a stone had melted into air before me and become invisible."
The academic road now seemed to h... (查看原文)
