Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky was a Russian painter and art theorist active in Germany during the late Belle Époque and Interwar eras. Kandinsky is generally credited as one of the pioneers of abstraction in Western art. Born in Moscow, he began painting studies at the age of 30.
Paintings by Wassily Kandinsky
Auf Weiss II (Sur blanc II) (1923)
Auf Weiss II (Sur blanc II), in English: On White II, is a 1923 oil-on-canvas painting by Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky. It was created when the artist was a teacher at the Bauhaus in Weimar. The painting initially hung in the dining room of Wassily and Nina Kandinsky's apartment at Bauhaus Dessau. Since 1976, as a gift from Nina Kandinsky, it has been in the collection of the Musée National d'Art Moderne, in Paris.
The composition of the painting consists mainly of diagonals. Geometric shapes such as lines, circles, semicircles, triangles, squares, a checkerboard pattern and a black area in the center of the crossing figures, as well as a larger brownish-gray trapezoid, are reminiscent of the Russian painter Kazimir Malevich and his suprematist style, which Kandinsky understood and admired. The white background of the painting creates the impression that the geometric shapes and the main axes formed by them, with the emblems of Suprematism at the center of composition, are floating freely in an endless space and thus appear weightless. At this time, Kandinsky often integrated the trapeze into his paintings. Kandinsky mainly used the primary colors, which, however, also produce other shades of color through superimposition. The motif of elongated, sharpened lance-like elements in the shape of St. Andrew's cross appears several times in his work and refers to the dragon slayer Saint George. He had painted this motif several times since the 1910s and they became more abstract with time.
Composition VI (1913)
Composition VI is a 1913 oil painting on canvas by the Russian artist Wassily Kandinsky, now in the Hermitage Museum, in Saint Petersburg.
The result of 24 studies, it took the painter eight months to complete the large painting. He wanted to depict a flood, a baptism and the theme of destruction and rebirth. His assistant, Gabriele Münter - with whom he had a professional and personal relationship between 1902 and 1916 - advised him to break free from the initial outline and think about the German word 'Überflut' (flood) and the acoustic sensations it suggested to him. Kandinsky finished the painting within three days of that suggestion, intoning the word 'uberflut' for those whole three days.
Composition VII (1913)
Composition VII is a 1913 abstract oil painting by Russian-born painter Wassily Kandinsky. It is in the collection of the Tretyakov Gallery, in Moscow. Art historians have concluded that the work is a combination of the themes of Resurrection, Judgment Day, the Flood and the Garden of Eden.
Kandinsky's preliminary study was his first abstract watercolor. Untitled (Study for Composition VII, Première abstraction) was painted in 1913, and is the first of Kandinsky's "Compositions" and "Improvisations" series that began to emerge during his Blue Rider Period. Though the work is dated 1910, art historians believe the date is apocryphal, and that Kandinsky dated the work in 1913.
The Blue Rider (Kandinsky) (1903)
The Blue Rider (German: Der Blaue Reiter) is a 1903 oil painting by Wassily Kandinsky. The work depicts a rider in a blue cloak riding on a white horse through a meadow, with a forest in the background. The painting uses bright colors, repetition of shapes and short brush strokes creating a sense of motion.
The painting contains elements of many different art movements and it marks Kandinsky's transition from figurative art to abstraction. Interpretations of the painting suggest a heavy use of symbolism; for example, critics associate the rider with Saint George, and that he is fighting the dragon of materialism.
Upward (Kandinsky) (1929)
Upward (German: Empor) is an oil on cardboard painting created in 1929 by the Russian abstract painter Wassily Kandinsky. Painted at a time when Kandinsky was teaching art at the Bauhaus in Dessau, Germany, it now forms part of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in the Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, Venice, Italy.
The painting depicts a set of geometric shapes assembled to suggest upward rising energy. In both the base of the central motif and in the upper right hand corner can be seen the capital letter E, possibly representing the initial letter of the painting's German name Empor. A dot and horizontal line in the main semicircle suggest a human face; preparatory drawings indicate that these were late additions. The painting is reminiscent of the style of Paul Klee, who was Kandinsky's friend and colleague at the Bauhaus.
Das Bunte Leben (1907)
Das Bunte Leben (The Colourful Life) is a tempera on canvas painting by the Russian artist Wassily Kandinsky, from 1907. It is held in the Lenbachhaus in Munich.
Dutch art collector, Emanuel Lewenstein bought the painting immediately after it was finished in 1907. After his death, his widow, Hedwig, loaned it to Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam for safekeeping.
Simple Complexity (1939)
Simple Complexity or Ambiguity is an abstract 1939 oil on canvas painting, produced by Wassily Kandinsky in Neuilly-sur-Seine in France. It was given to the Musée National d'Art Moderne in Paris by its friends' association in 1959 but has been loaned to the Museum of Grenoble since 1988.
Composition X (1939)
Composition X is an abstract oil painting created in 1939 by the Russian émigré artist Wassily Kandinsky, then living near Paris. It is part of the collection of the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen in Düsseldorf, Germany.
Kandinsky compared abstract painting to the process of musical composition, and called his major conceptual works "compositions", as opposed to his lesser "improvisations". Composition X is the last of the ten compositions he painted during his lifetime (he was 73 at the time). Unusually for Kandinsky, who attached spiritual importance to color and geometric forms, the predominant color of the painting is black, which for him evoked the closure and end of things. On the black background float various geometric shapes, whose meaning is left to the viewer's appreciation.
Composition VIII (1923)
Artist: Vassily Kandinsky Title:Composition 8 Date: July 1923 Oil on canvas Photo taken at the Art Gallery of New South Wales
Landscape with Red Spots (1913)
Landscape with Red Spots was the name given to each of two successive oil paintings produced in Bavaria in 1913 by the Russian émigré painter Wassily Kandinsky. The first is now in the Museum Folkwang, in Essen, Germany. The second, known as Landscape with Red Spots, No 2 (see picture at right), is in the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, in Venice.
Between 1909 and the beginning of World War I, Kandinsky and his female companion, the painter Gabriele Münter, spent their summers in Murnau am Staffelsee on the edge of the Bavarian Alps. The village church of St Nikolaus and its prominent round tower feature several times in landscape paintings executed by the artist during his time there. As Kandinsky's style evolved over the period into abstract expressionism the images of the church and its surroundings became gradually less figurative and more abstract.
Three Elements (1925)
Three Elements is a March 1925 abstract painting by the Russian artist Wassily Kandinsky.
Kandinsky presented it to his nephew Alexandre Kojève, in whose family it remained after Kojève's death in 1968. The painting was bought in 2002 from Kojève's widow, Nina Ivanoff (also spelled Ivanov) and is now in the Musée d'Art moderne et contemporain of Strasbourg, France. Its inventory number is 55.002.3.1.