Wassily Kandinsky image gallery, presented by the Eternal Pilgrim and BookSplendour, online dealers in used, rare, out of print books, collectible and antiquarian books, and original fine art, based in Brisbane, Queensland.

Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944)

Kandinsky, who was born in Russia, but spent most of his life in Germany and France, is probably the most important artist amongst the early abstract painters. Not only has he some claims to being the first to paint abstract (which is disputable), but he was also an influential theorist of art. His book, Concerning the Spiritual in Art and Painting in Particular, published in 1912, is as fresh as ever after nearly a century. So are his paintings. On the works of Kandinsky it is easy to follow the painter's progress, from the early Expressionist and Fauvist paintings, which are still essentially representational, to a pure abstraction. Let's go on the journey of discovery of painting style with him.


This painting could have easily been done by someone like Cézanne. Obvious is already the cerebral approach towards composition, particularly in the artist's use of the golden section.

A similar subject to the previous one, but here it is treated in the Fauvist style, with the highly contrasting colours. The strong use of colours will remain Kandinsky's trade mark.

The Blue Rider (or Der Blaue Reuter), an early version of one of Kandinsky's favourite themes.

A black train riding into the Fauvist countryside with houses. As if about to take plunge into an unknown...

Some figures, barely recognizable as such, but still there.

A rider on a horse, one of my favourite paintings.

These could be some fairy tale creatures, maybe even the Hobbits, wouldn't you say?

Perhaps Kandinsky might have heard of Ned Kelly, though I doubt it. Sydney Nolan however would have heard of Kandinsky.

There is nothing much left by now to recognize as a regular form.

Some geometric abstraction is beginning to appear. It will become more prominent in the later paintings.

Planets? Amoebas? Bubbles? You decide.

This reminds me strongly of some works by the Australian Aboriginal artists.

Some geometry, with a black sun looking on.

This could be a whale, swimming somewhere near the shore. It could also be something else.

Are there suggestions of faces here?

Small Words

Black Strokes

Gnomus (design for a stage play) 

Dominant Curve

Twilight

Picture VVI.

Untitled (1942)

Boat Trip

Fugue

Upward

 

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