 | Vassily Kandinsky 1866 - 1944KANDINSKY (After), Vasily 'Période Parisienne' 1934-1944, 1940 Colour lithograph on velin de Lana. Initialled and dated ' VK40' , lower left, on the stone. Colour lithograph on velin de lana. From Derrière le Miroir No. 179, published by Maeght, Paris, 1968. 15 x 11" (38 x 28 cm) D5034003 |
 | Vassily Kandinsky 1866 - 1944KANDINSKY (After), Vasily 'Periode Parisienne' 1934-1944, 1937 Colour lithograph on velin de Lana. Initialled and dated ' VK 37 ', lower left, on the stone. Colour lithograph on velin de Lana. From Derriere le Miroir, No. 179, published by Maeght, Paris, 1968. 15 x 22" (38 x 56 cm) D5047008 |
 | Vassily Kandinsky 1866 - 1944KANDINSKY (After), Vasily 'Periode Parisienne' 1934-1944, 1937 Colour lithograph on velin de Lana. Initialled and dated ' VK 37 ', lower left, on the stone. Colour lithograph on velin de Lana. From Derriere le Miroir, No. 179, published by Maeght, Paris, 1968. 15 x 22" (38 x 56 cm) D5047010 |
Vassily Kandinsky 1866 - 1944
Vassily Kandinsky was born in Moscow and is generally considered to be the pioneer of abstract painting. His first work to be so described was a watercolour of 1910; however, all representational elements disappeared from his work only in the 1920s.
Kandinsky was trained as a lawyer and took up painting when he was 30, studying the art first in Munich. His early work was related to the Russian Symbolists and the Sezession groups. In 1906 he went to Paris for a year and exhibited at the current Salons. On his return to Munich his work began to reflect the ideas of the French Nabis and Fauves and became related to the Die Bruch group.
From the beginning the city of Moscow, Russian icon painting and folk-art strongly influenced him, providing a link with the Moscow avant-garde. By 1909 Kandinsky was painting landscapes called Improvisations which reflect a growing detachment from nature. In 1910 he painted his first abstract works, making contact with the Muscovite avant-garde, who invited him to exhibit at the first Knave of Diamonds Exhibition. His On the Spiritual in Art was published in 1912. In 1911 he was a co-founder of the Blaue Reiter. In 1912 Kandinsky had his first one-man show at the Berlin Sturm Gallery and published 2 plays Yellow Tone and Violet, which reflect his interest in relations between colour and music. He also became interested in the German Romantic philosophers, Rudolf Steiner and occultism. With the Bolshevik Revolution he was drawn into administrative work in the art field. In 1920 he drew up a programme for a new teaching system in art schools, but its Symbolist philosophy was rejected by the Constructivists and was put into practice only after he had left Russia and joined the Bauhaus school in Weimar (1922).
In 1920 Kandinsky began to paint again, introducing geometrical forms which became strictly abstract, reminiscent of Suprematist and Constructivist work; such forms remained typical throughout his Bauhaus period up to 1933, when he moved to France and came under the influence of Miro, his forms becoming more fluid and Surrealist. While at the Bauhaus he wrote Point and Line to Surface (1926), which deals with the nature of form.