VASILY KANDINSKY: FOUNDER OF ABSTRACTIONISM 1866-1944

First Abstract Watercolor,

1910

KANDINSKY’S LIFE• Kandinsky was born in Moscow, Russia even though he lived in

Germany and France for most of his life.

• Kandinsky moved to Munich in 1896 and studied painting at the Munich Academy

• Around 1910, Kandinsky paints his first abstract painting and starts the Abstractionist movement.

• Kandinsky wrote a book called On the Spiritual in Art, which was published in 1911.

• In 1912, he left NKVM and became one of the founders of the Blue Rider in Munich, which is a group of artists that includes August Macke, Arnold Schoenberg, and Robert Delaunay.

• Kandinsky was offered a job at the Bauhaus, which is an art school. He taught from 1922 to 1933 and that was when the Nazis took over.

• Kandinsky died in 1944

BIG IDEA:1 MUSIC INFLUENCES KANDINSKY

Vasily Kandinsky was greatly influenced by music, specifically

Richard Wagner’s operas.

“The Soul is a piano with many strings, and the artist is the

hand that, by striking one particular key, causes the human

soul to vibrate” -Kandinsky

BIG IDEA 2: KANDINSKY LOVES COLOR

“Color is the medium by which one can affect the sole

directly” -Kandinsky

Composition IV,

1911

Improvisation VII,

1910

BIG IDEA 3: KANDINSKY’S PAINTINGS ARE CHAOTIC

Picture With a Black Arch,

1912

Fantastic Improvisation,

1913

• Lots of Movement

• No real order

• No symmetry

KASIMIR MALEVICH 1878-1935

The Black Square, 1915

MALEVICH’S LIFE

• Kasimir Malevich was born in Kiev, Ukraine 1878

• In 1906, Malevich settles in Moscow and studies with Fedor Rerberg.

• Between 1912 and 1915, Malevich joined the Russian Futurist group.

• In 1915 Malevich starts his own small movement, Suprematism, by

submitting works like The Black Square to a Futurist exhibition.

Suprematism is a form of Abstractionism.

• In 1923, Malevich is appointed as the director of the Petrograd Museum

of Artistic Culture.

• Malevich died in 1935.

BIG IDEA 1: THE BLACK SQUARE

• First painted in 1915

• Represents and Expresses

nothing

• Ground Zero of painting

BIG IDEA 2: MALEVICH USES GEOMETRIC ABSTRACTION

Suprematist Painting,

1916

Supremus No. 58, 1916

• Malevich is a Geometric Abstractionist

• Malevich uses more color than other Abstractionists

BIG IDEA 3: MALEVICH, A SPIRITUAL ABSTRACTIONIST

Red Square, 1915

• Kasimir Malevich believes that painting is by feeling and that art

is in its purest form when it is free of representing natural

objects.

FRANTISEK KUPKA 1871-1957

Graduated Red

FRANTISEK KUPKA’S LIFE

• Frantisek Kupka is born in Opocno, Bohemia, 1871 (Bohemia is

in the Czech Republic).

• Kupka moves to Vienna, Austria in 1892.

• In 1912 at the Salon d’ Automne in Paris his work enrages

French Critics because they did not blend well with French taste

and tradition.

• In 1923 Frantisek Kupka has his book published in Prague. The

book is called Creation in Plastic Art and it contains Kupka’s

theory of color.

• Kupka died in 1957.

BIG IDEA 1: KUPKA IS A SPIRITUAL ABSTRACTIONIST

• Kupka was a young

daydreamer.

Graduated Red

• Kupka’s paintings seem

dream-like.

BIG IDEA 2: KUPKA’S WORK INVOLVES

INTERCONNECTED RINGS AND OVALS

Localization of Graphic Motifs II,

1912-13

Disks of Newton, 1919

• One unique theme aside from other abstractionism in the

paintings of Frantisek Kupka is the overlapping circle or oval

like structure.

THE EFFECT OF ABSTRACTIONISM

Winter

05Dancer

Two

• Challenged the ideal perception of art.

• An original Artistic Idea.

• Its influence is seen

today.

PUBLIC REACTION TO ABSTRACTIONISM

• Totalitarian leaders rejected Abstractionism.

• Abstractionism is criticized for expressing social

realities

• Abstractionism is criticized for lacking everything good

and pure in art.

• Criticized for being non-traditional.

ABSTRACTIONISM VS. ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM

Malevich, Red Square, 1915 Rothko, Four Darks in Red, 1958

• Aside from the fact that these art movements are from

different time periods, there is a noticeable difference

in brush stroke.

ABSTRACTIONISM VS. ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM CONTINUED

Kandinsky, First Abstract

Watercolor, 1910Pollock, Number 1, 1948

• Like the Abstract Expressionists, Kandinsky has a chaotic style but not

quite as chaotic as Pollock’s paintings.