http://www.lsi.usp.br/~artigas/kandinsky/4/black.jpg
I love this painting. I could stare at it all day long. I used to have a print of it that hung on my wall, but sadly, it was lost one of the times I moved.
The thing is, I’ve been searching through every Kandinsky site I can find on the Web, and I can’t find it, except on the page I linked above, which provides no information whatsoever about it, except that it’s by Kandinsky. I can’t even remember the title.
Can someone identify this painting by title, and maybe even give some more information about it? I know zip about Kandinsky except that if I could live in a painting, I would live in this one. (I don’t know, maybe that’s revealing a little too much about my personality.)
I remember seeing a lot of his pictures along very similar lines at an exhibition (at Tate Modern IIRC) called “point and line to plane” most of the pictures didn’t have real titles just a simple description and/or number.
I prefer his splogier paintings but some of the geometric style ones are very effective too.
Whatsit You could try looking through some art books. The web is probably only going to bring up the most well known piccies.
All I can tell you is that it’s one of his later paintings, from 1922 onward, when he joined the Bauhaus. You might be able to find something on the web by searching Kandinsky and Bauhaus.
Well, isn’t that a dandy? Pretty interesting painting, that is for sure.
I looked in my one art book and only found Black Lines in it. In my art book (Gilbert’s Living With Art, 6th edition, p506) it says that Kandinsky was struck by the beauty of a painting in his studio that he didn’t recognize. It was his own painting, but turned upside down. About color, Kandinsky wrote, “Generally speaking, color influences the soul. Color is the keyboard, the eyes are the hammers, the soul is the piano with many strings. The artists is the hand that plays, touching one key or another purposively, to cause vibrations in the soul.”
With that quote in mind, check out the rest of his works that are at the Guggenheim link above. I had never heard of this artist, but I am also fascinated by his work now. I love these art threads!
Yep, it’s one of his early Bauhaus works (1924) and it’s titled “Black Relationship.”
We put on the play Six Degrees of Separation at my college recently and the set designer recreated this painting on the actual set–because of the different levels of the set, you couldn’t tell unless you were looking down on it. It was amazing. I’d honestly never paid much attention to Kandinsky before I did that play, but after my first read-through I went to the library and checked some art books out. He uses color in the most extraordinary way.
Thanks, guys!
I now have the title, but still am finding a paucity of information on the Web, so I think my next stop is the local library.
Maybe this information will help you. I must preface it by telling you this is strictly my idea and may not be correct, as I have not studied Kandinsky in depth.
László Moholy-Nagy was at the Bauhaus during the same time period. Your Kandinsky painting reminds me of a style employed by Moholy-Nagy. It is quite possible that he was one of the influences on Kandisky. Moholy-Nagy was held in high esteem by his collegues.
here is a link on László Moholy-Nagy:
http://www.guggenheimcollection.org/site/artist_work_md_111_1.html
One interesting thing about Moholy-Nagy is that for a time period, he created works of art that he did not physically paint himself. He wanted to be able to so precicely descibe a painting that a typical sign painter could do it for him. For example, he’d say, “there is a circle 3cm in diamter whose radius is 15cm down and 10cm from the right of the upper left corner…”
IIRC, he would often make this an exercise for his students. He would give directions and the student was ‘graded’ according to how well it matched Moholy-Nagy’s original (that they had not seen).
When I have taught art to children, I have used this as an exercise as well. It’s a lot of fun.
I just popped in to mention that I love that painting too. Kandinsky is one of my favorite artists. I love the Surrealists.
In fact, I’ve given up on trying to decorate my house in the period in which it was built (1940s). Now I’m trying to do artist-themed rooms. The living room will become the Kandinsky Room. Kitchen is the Van Gogh room (Sunflowers). The bedroom – I’m not sure but there’s got to be a really great artist who did color photographs of trees. And the office will be the Jackson Pollack room – I’ll take all the leftover paint from the other rooms and fling it around in there until the walls aren’t beige anymore. One room will have to be the Dali room and I’ll need a Botero room as well.
How fun is this project going to be?
Kandinsky isn’t generally regarded as a Surrealist. He’s most closely associated with the German Expressionists and, specifically, as the central force behind Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Riders.) His geometrical works during the 20s were heavily influenced by Bauhaus. Towards the end of his career, there may have been a touch of surrealism in his work, but I’ve never heard him referred to as a Surrealist.