Concerning the Spiritual in Art by Wassily Kandinsky

Concerning the Spiritual in Art by Wassily Kandinsky

Artists and thinkers alike will treasure this special hardcover edition of one of the most important documents in the history of modern art. A pioneering work in the movement to free art from its traditional bonds to material reality, and written by the famous nonobjective painter Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944), it explains Kandinsky's own theory of painting and crystallizes the ideas that were influencing many other modern artists of the period. Along with his own groundbreaking paintings, this book had a tremendous impact on the development of modern art.

Kandinsky, Wassily: - Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky (16 December [O.S. 4 December] 1866 - 13 December 1944) was a Russian painter and art theorist. Kandinsky is generally credited as the pioneer of abstract art.[1] Born in Moscow, Kandinsky spent his childhood in Odessa (today Ukraine), where he graduated at Grekov Odessa Art school. He enrolled at the University of Moscow, studying law and economics. Successful in his profession-he was offered a professorship (chair of Roman Law) at the University of Dorpat (today Tartu, Estonia)-Kandinsky began painting studies (life-drawing, sketching and anatomy) at the age of 30. In 1896, Kandinsky settled in Munich, studying first at Anton Azbe's private school and then at the Academy of Fine Arts. He returned to Moscow in 1914, after the outbreak of World War I. Following the Russian Revolution, Kandinsky became an insider in the cultural administration of Anatoly Lunacharsky[2] and helped establish the Museum of the Culture of Painting.[3] However, by then his spiritual outlook... was foreign to the argumentative materialism of Soviet society, [4] and opportunities beckoned in Germany, to which he returned in 1920. There he taught at the Bauhaus school of art and architecture from 1922 until the Nazis closed it in 1933. He then moved to France, where he lived for the rest of his life, becoming a French citizen in 1939 and producing some of his most prominent art. He died in Neuilly-sur-Seine in 1944. Kandinsky was born in Moscow, the son of Lidia Ticheeva and Vasily Silvestrovich Kandinsky, a tea merchant.[5][6] One of his great grandmothers was a Princess Gantimurova, probably explaining the slight Mongolian trait in his features.[7] Kandinsky learned from a variety of sources while in Moscow. He studied many fields while in school, including law and economics. Later in life, he would recall being fascinated and stimulated by colour as a child. His fascination with colour symbolism and psychology continued as he grew. In 1889, he was part of an ethnographic research group which travelled to the Vologda region north of Moscow. In Looks on the Past, he relates that the houses and churches were decorated with such shimmering colours that upon entering them, he felt that he was moving into a painting. This experience, and his study of the region's folk art (particularly the use of bright colours on a dark background), was reflected in much of his early work. A few years later he first likened painting to composing music in the manner for which he would become noted, writing, Colour is the keyboard, the eyes are the hammers, the soul is the piano with many strings. The artist is the hand which plays, touching one key or another, to cause vibrations in the soul.[8] Kandinsky was also the uncle of Russian-French philosopher Alexandre Kojü¾Ž†”¼ve (1902-1968).

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780486234113
ISBN 10	0486234118
Title	Concerning the Spiritual in Art
Author	Wassily Kandinsky
Series	Dover Fine Art History Of Art
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Dover Publications Inc.
Year published	2000-02-01
Number of pages	80
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.