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May 2021,
The founding father of abstract art——
Vasily Kandinsky
China's first large-scale retrospective exhibition landed in Shanghai,
It was also this 20th century master throughout Asia
One of the largest appearances.
Kandinsky, Yellow, Red, and Blue, 1925
Kandinsky's life is legendary:
Born in the second generation of the rich, he is a veritable bully;
At the age of 30, he resigned nakedly and turned to art.
He started his first solo exhibition at the age of 42;
Have the ability to "synths" visually communicate with music;
After two world wars in exile,
In his later years, he fell in love with ancient Chinese bronzes...
His love scene is wonderful,
The two most important women in life,
Generously donated his works during his lifetime,
Only to allow the audience of this era to see the original work.
Kandinsky exhibition site Shanghai West Bund Art Museum
This retrospective,
is a special exhibition of the West Bund Museum in cooperation with the Pompidou Center,
Presenting Kandinsky's rich life in chronological order in 5 chapters,
Nearly 100 precious originals and manuscripts,
1:1 replica of the foyer mural,
There is also the private collection of Kandinsky, which was exhibited for the first time in the world:
Artworks and publications related to China will be presented separately.
Follow one and step into Kandinsky's art world.
Written by Chen Qin, responsible editor Chen Ziwen
In 1896, the 29-year-old law professor Kandinsky stopped for a long time in front of Monet's famous "Haystack" series and was deeply shaken.
Monet's Haystack series
15 groups of grain stacks, in the four seasons and the flow of morning and dusk, light and shadow, color is constantly changing. He suddenly realized that brilliant colors could be liberated from objects. For him, it was "a miracle he could never have dreamed of."
Kandinsky 1906
Soon after, Kandinsky decided to give up his promising position as a law professor and go to Munich to pursue his artistic dreams. Halfway out of the house, he was ambitious, but reserved and serious, and did not have the arrogance of his contemporaries Picasso.
This master of abstract art, at a critical stage of life, encountered two loves, a "forbidden love (teacher-student love)" and a "old and young love".
It is said that as soon as Kandinsky fell in love, he would leave abstract art behind and paint figurative works for his lover. In the hands of these two women, there are paintings that have lasted through Kandinsky's life.
Kandinsky and his wife Nina in a garden in Dessau
During World War I, 51-year-old Kandinsky fell in love with Nina Andreevskaya, a Russian woman 27 years younger than himself, and quickly flashed marriage with her, with whom she spent 27 years married. After Kandinsky's death, Nina did not remarry, and she donated most of Kandinsky's post-World War I works to the Centre Pompidou.
This feast of kandinsky abstract art, which will last for four months in Shanghai, benefited from Nina's generous donations and bequests.
Kandinsky was born with a golden spoon.
His father was a tea dealer in Siberia, and his mother was a descendant of mongolian aristocrats, who grew up in a well-off family, did not experience the taste of trouble, and was a "spoiled" child. His family gave him a good education, and he was sent to learn piano and cello from an early age. At Moscow University, he received his doctorate in law and economics, and everything went well.
Kandinsky in Munich
At the end of the 19th century, although Munich was not as full of masters and storms as in Paris – Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Symbolism, Fauvism, and various artistic trends were unprecedentedly active – a wave of innovation was brewing in Munich.
Landscape of the Valley, 1904
Lake Kochel near Munich, 1902
As a die-hard Fan of Monet, Kandinsky was actively involved in the Art Nouveau movement of the time. Like the Impressionists, he valued the perception of real objects, painted with color blocks on canvas with a palette knife, and tried art forms such as tempera, oil painting, and woodcut prints.
The turn of abstraction takes place in the German town of Murnau.
Kandinsky's first abstract watercolor: Untitled, 1910
Kandinsky gazed at the rich colors of nature, immersed in the light blue light and shadow of the mountains, and began to gradually break away from the figurative elements and use simple shapes to form his own abstract style.
Sketch of Composition II, 1910
Highly saturated colors, the influence of Henri Matisse and Fauvism can be clearly seen, and the canvas becomes a stage for multiple oppositions between shapes and colors.
During this period, he also formed the "Blue Knight" artist group with artists such as Franz Marc, which was a sensation.
Improvisation III, 1909
In Improv III, elongated brushstrokes, casual colors, and fiery red skies show a knight riding a green horse on a bridge.
Paintings with Red Marks, 1914
Around 1910, it was the era of the Modern Art Revolution in the West, the French "Cubism" movement was in full swing, and the Italian "Futurism" was in full swing. Kandinsky maintained his usual concentration and calmness, and closed the door to write his most famous work of art, On the Spirit of Art.
Composition 8, 1923
In this book, he created the theory of "synesthesia (perceptual mixture)", interpreting his abstract art from a musical point of view.
The book was introduced to China in 1984, and although it had a "jet lag" of more than 70 years, it still profoundly influenced the "85 Art New Wave" movement in China and inspired the avant-garde art at that time.
In this visual and musical "synesthesia", yellow has a frivolous appeal, and when people look at any yellow geometry for a long time, they will feel upset, like a harsh horn;
Blue evokes a desire for purity and detachment, and the lighter the blue, the more indifferent it is. Light blue is like a flute, blue is like a cello, and dark blue is like a double bass;
Red gives the impression of strength, dynamism, determination and triumph, like the sound of a small trumpet in a band, loud and high;
White is a silent silence, like a pause in a melody, but not like the silence of death, but like the hope, like the nothingness before the birth of life...
To The Voice, 1916
Inspired by music, Kandinsky often named his paintings in ways similar to the title of pieces such as "Improvisation" and "Composition". There are as many as thirty-five paintings with the title of "Improvisation" alone.
"Point" is the most concise geometric form, with a tight sense of temporal rhythm, in nature, it symbolizes a short and powerful sound;
The "line" is produced by points, more directional and tense, and in the melody, the thickness of the line symbolizes the presence of pitch;
The "surface" is framed by two horizontal lines and two vertical lines, the horizontal line is cold and static, and the vertical line is warm and static, just like the two voice parts, which determine the overall sound of the picture.
At the age of 48, World War I broke out.
After Germany declared war on Russia, the Russian citizen Kandinsky was ordered to leave Germany within three days and he had to return to Russia.
Kandinsky's portrait of his former lover Monte in 1905
During this period, Kandinsky did not paint a single oil painting, but only painted more abstract manuscripts and watercolors.
Portrait of Nina 1917
In the third year after the war, Kandinsky met the daughter of a Russian colonel, Nina, who was only 23 years old, and quickly married her. Spending the summer in the small town of Akhtelka, Kandinsky was fascinated by the joy of his new marriage and returned to figurative painting for the sake of his young wife.
Achterka – Nina and Tatiana on the Front Porch, 1917
Monte, a German girl in Sweden who was waiting for Kandinsky, once thought that Kandinsky had died in the war or the October Revolution in Russia.
Bauhaus teachers photo 1926
Kandinsky and Nina in the Bauhaus in 1931
After World War I, Monte returned to Germany, and soon after, Kandinsky was invited by Walter Gropius, the founder of the Bauhaus Academy, to Germany with his wife Nina. It was only then that Monte learned that Kandinsky had betrayed her, and in utter disappointment and anger she refused to return the works kandinsky had entrusted her with before the war.
"Circle in Circle", 1923
Unfolding in Brown, 1933
In 1922, Kandinsky began an 11-year teaching career at the Bauhaus, and the rigorous geometric style gradually became prominent, he used rulers and compasses to create paintings filled with triangles, squares and circles, and began to write his second important theoretical work, "Dotted Line Surfaces", the themes of this period, mainly around geometric shapes and color gradients.
A quiet professorship ended with Hitler coming to power, and Kandinsky went into exile in Paris.
Sky Blue, 1931
During this period, soft, non-geometric contours of creatures and animal forms, bright, brilliant colors filled his paintings.
Composer IX, 1936
Composition IX, the whole picture is covered with pastel and rich tones, and the composition unfolds around the color diagonal.
Yellow, warm and light blue, cool colors alternate, and on each linear patch of color, there are small abstract shapes, such as embryos, larvae, and even invertebrates, which seem to float on a canvas, looking like the microcosm that gave birth to life.
Untitled, 1944, on paper
Soon after, World War II broke out and France was occupied by the Nazis. Kandinsky's abstract art was so unpopular that it was called "degenerate art" by the Nazis, and although Kandinsky's paintings were already valued by the United States at the time, he did not choose to leave the turbulent France.
He and his wife, Nina, were almost reclusive, materially scarce and could only paint on paper.
Kandinsky died of illness in Paris in 1944.
Top: Kandinsky Paris Studio Part II: Brushes and glasses used before his death
Bounded by world war I, lover Monte and his wife Nina, respectively, preserved Kandinsky's major works before and after the war. Despite his betrayal, Monte never considered selling any of Kandinsky's works during his period of material deprivation.
After the end of World War II, on the occasion of her 80th birthday, Monte decided to donate more than 400 Kandinsky paintings that she had kept in safe custody, and she had a vendetta against her former lover.