Vasily Kandinsky: From Blaue Reiter to the Bauhaus, 1910-1925
Text by Vivian Endicott Barnett, Shulamith Behr, Reinhold Heller, Jill Lloyd, Peter Vergo, Rose-Carol Washton Long.
This catalogue accompanies a major exhibition devoted to Vasily Kandinsky. It explores the evolution of his work from the Blaue Reiter to the Bauhaus years. During this period, Kandinsky developed his revolutionary abstract style and began to move beyond conventional easel painting. As master of the mural workshop at the Bauhaus, Kandinsky was able to put his ambition to create large-scale art environments into practice, particularly in his mural designs for the 1922 Juryfreie exhibition in Berlin and later in his decorations for the Salon de Musique in 1931. At this time, he developed a strong interest in the Wagnerian concept of the Gesamtkunstwerk, or total work of art. Embracing the principles of synesthesia, Kandinsky focused on the relationship between art and music, pushing the boundaries of the medium.Vasily Kandinsky (1866–1944) began painting at the age of 30, after putting aside a highly successful career in law. After studying at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, he returned to his native Moscow just after the outbreak of World War I. Uninspired by the prevalent Suprematist and Futurist art there, he returned to Germany in 1921, teaching at the Bauhaus until the school was closed by the Nazis. He then moved to France, where he lived until his death in 1944.
"Small Pleasures" (1913) is reproduced from Vasily Kandinsky: From Blaue Reiter to the Bauhaus, 1910-1925.
PRAISE AND REVIEWS
CHOICE
J. Simon
Vasily Kandinsky's work has been celebrated lately by a number of major exhibitions. Contributors to this exhibition catalogue must meet the challenge of offering essays with new scholarly approaches to a well-researched artist. Independent art historian Lloyd and her group of renowned Kandinsky scholars find additional avenues to pursue, and present them in lively, accessible essays. They tease out, in six essays, the big idea inflecting Kandinsky's work of the Gesamtkunstwerk, the total work of art. They do so with much more success than did the 2013-14 Neue Galerie exhibition itself. As with that exhibition and the color plates of the catalogue, inclusions by Kandinsky's colleagues in the Blaue Reiter group--such as Marc, Macke, Werefkin, and even Klee--do little to illuminate that aspect of the Russian's work. Rather the additional photographs and figures accompanying the essays contribute significantly to understanding how much Kandinsky looked to and incorporated the other arts. Shulamith Behr's, Kandinsky and Theater, especially conveys the extent of Kandinsky's theatrical adventures and their contexts with detailed explications and readings. The documentary value of Christian Derouet's discussion in his chapter titled "The Juryfreie Murals" should be applauded as well. The volume is full of beautiful color plates and archival photographs rarely reproduced. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-level undergraduates through researchers/faculty; general readers.
"Circles within a Circle" (1923) is reproduced from Vasily Kandinsky: From Blaue Reiter to the Bauhaus, 1910-1925, the companion catalogue to the exhibition currently on view at the Neue Galerie in New York. In his Preface, Neue Galerie President and devoted Kandinsky collector Ronald S. Lauder quotes the artist, "Color 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." continue to blog
FORMAT: Hbk, 9.25 x 11.25 in. / 208 pgs / 192 color. LIST PRICE: U.S. $60.00 LIST PRICE: CANADA $70 ISBN: 9783775737340 PUBLISHER: Hatje Cantz AVAILABLE: 11/30/2013 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Out of print AVAILABILITY: Not available TERRITORY: NA LA
Vasily Kandinsky: From Blaue Reiter to the Bauhaus, 1910-1925
Published by Hatje Cantz. Text by Vivian Endicott Barnett, Shulamith Behr, Reinhold Heller, Jill Lloyd, Peter Vergo, Rose-Carol Washton Long.
This catalogue accompanies a major exhibition devoted to Vasily Kandinsky. It explores the evolution of his work from the Blaue Reiter to the Bauhaus years. During this period, Kandinsky developed his revolutionary abstract style and began to move beyond conventional easel painting. As master of the mural workshop at the Bauhaus, Kandinsky was able to put his ambition to create large-scale art environments into practice, particularly in his mural designs for the 1922 Juryfreie exhibition in Berlin and later in his decorations for the Salon de Musique in 1931. At this time, he developed a strong interest in the Wagnerian concept of the Gesamtkunstwerk, or total work of art. Embracing the principles of synesthesia, Kandinsky focused on the relationship between art and music, pushing the boundaries of the medium.Vasily Kandinsky (1866–1944) began painting at the age of 30, after putting aside a highly successful career in law. After studying at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, he returned to his native Moscow just after the outbreak of World War I. Uninspired by the prevalent Suprematist and Futurist art there, he returned to Germany in 1921, teaching at the Bauhaus until the school was closed by the Nazis. He then moved to France, where he lived until his death in 1944.
