1. Der Blaue Reiter Wassily Kandinsky Franz Marc Auguste Macke Gabriele Munter Paul Klee

4. Der Blaue Reiter and philosophical influences. Theosophy - Drawing from philosophical and religious backgrounds (Hinduism, Judaism, Zoroastrianism), it was established by the Russian Madame Blavatsky in 1875. They believed in the idea of universal brotherhood; the idea that colour and form can enrich the soul; that people have colour auras (‘thought forms’) that change colour according to people’s mood; that an apocalypse will bring about a final spiritual world; and that the 21st century will be a time of paradise on earth. Psychology - Synaesthesia : a belief that some people have the ability to see colours when they hear a particular sound/music. Kandinsky wrote, “Various attempts to exploit this power of colour and apply it to different nervous disorders…red light has an enlivening and stimulating affect.” Freud : his theories on automatic drawing, or to create from the unconscious rather than conscious part of the mind as a way of tapping into a universal understanding.

5. Der Blaue Reiter and philosophical influences. Darwinism - Der Blaue Reiter artists like Kandinsky and Marc used animals as symbols in their works at they saw them as existing in balance with nature…this aligned well with their interest in spirituality. Kandinsky used the horse as a symbol of power and passion whereas Marc used animals to represent truth, purity, and beauty. The Apocalypse - For Kandinsky, this was going to bring about a necessary change and bring forth a new, non-material world. Many had seen science as something that was advancing too quickly and bringing too many changes and creating a corrupt and unbalanced world. Kandinsky wrote, “The collapse of the atom was equated…with the collapse of the whole world.” Many artists and liberal thinkers believed that the world was soon to collapse on itself. Such people included Kandinsky, Neitzsche, and Wagner. Der Blaue Reiter saw their task as prophesising this apocalypse.

7. Riding Couple, 1906-07, oil on canvas,

8. Colourful Life . 1907 oil on canvas.

10. Claude Monet Haystacks Kandinsky was deeply impressed with Monet’s haystacks. In was around 1905 that he went to a French Impressionist exhibition in Moscow. Kandinsky wrote: “ The catalogue told me that it was a haystack: I couldn’t tell it from looking. Not being able to to tell it upset me. I also considered that the artist had no right to paint so indistinctly…I had the dull sensation that the subject was missing. And was amazed and confused to realize that the picture did not merely fascin ate but impressed itself indelibly on my memory.”

11. Wassily Kandinsky - Munich-Schwabing with the Church of St. Ursula . 1908. Oil on cardboard. 68.8 x 49 cm.

12. Wasily Kandinsky, Blue Mountain, 1908–09. Oil on canvas, 41x38 inches.

16. Kandinsky, Mountain, 1909, Oil on canvas, 109x109cm.

17. Looking at these two works what stylistic features have changed? List three similarities and three differences. Blue Mountain, 1908–09 Mountain, 1909

18. Wassily Kandinsky. Picture with an Archer . 1909. Oil on canvas, 175 x 144 cm .

19. Picture with an Archer . 1909 Church of St. Ursula, 1908 Looking at these two works what stylistic features have changed? List three similarities and three differences.

20. Wassily Kandinsky -Improvisation 6 (African), 1909. Oil on canvas. 109 x99 cm.

21. Wassily Kandinsky, Two Riders and Reclining Figure , 1909-10.

22. Improvisation 7 1910, Oil on canvas, 131 x 97 cm.

24. Wassily Kandinsky Picasso Matisse Cubism had demonstrated a means to be liberated from traditional representation of form. Had seen that colour didn’t have to signify objects. … .has its own spiritual significance.

26. Kandinsky, "First Abstract Watercolour" 1910. Pencil, watercolour and India ink, 49.6 x 64.8 cm.

28. Kandinsky, Improvisation 19 , 1911. Oil on canvas, 120x141cm.

30. Wassily Kandinsky - Lyrical . 1911. Oil on canvas. 94 x 130 cm.

31. Composition ll. 1909-1910

32. Cossacks 1910-11

34. Composition IV , 1911, Oil on canvas, 159 x 250 cm

36. Kandinsky, Composition V (The last judgement) , 1911, Oil on Canvas, 200x300cm.

37. Later in 1911, Kandinsky produced Composition V , a much more abstract work. Several angels blowing trumpets are included in the upper portion of the canvas. The strong black line crossing from right to left can be felt as a representation of the blowing of the trumpets. Above this line, the towers of a walled-in city are visible. Below the line, the thin application of paint produces a luminescence that affects our perception of space in that portion of the canvas. The whiteness conveys a sense of infinity through the lack of volume and perspective. Out of this void, the viewer can sense the rising of the dead.

39. Yellow Blue Orange Red Violet Green White Black Kandinsky’s Colour Theory .

40. Kandinsky, Improvisation 26 (Oars), 1912, Oil on Canvas, 97x107cm

41. Kandinsky, Picture with a Black Arch , 1912. Oil on canvas, 188x196 cm.

44. Kandinsky, Picture with white border , 1913. Oil on canvas, 140x200cm

46. Kandinsky, Composition VI , 1913, Oil on canvas, 195x300cm.

48. Composition VII. 1913

49. Kandinsky, Composition VII , 1913, Oil on Canvas, 200x300cm. Composition VII is the pinnacle of Kandinsky's pre-World War One artistic achievement. Its creation involved over thirty preparatory drawings, watercolours and oil studies. Through all of the preparatory works and in the final painting itself, the central motif (an oval form intersected by an irregular rectangle) is maintained. This oval seems almost the eye of a compositional hurricane, surrounded by swirling masses of colour and form. In Composition VII's final form, Kandinsky has obliterated almost all pictorial representation. Art scholars, through Kandinsky's writings and study of the less abstract preparatory works, have determined that Composition VII combines the themes of The Resurrection, The Last Judgment, The Deluge and The Garden of Love in an operatic outburst of pure painting.

50. Kandinsky, Composition VIII , 1923

52. RUSSIAN CONTRIBUTION TO DEVELOPING ABSTRACTION. Rayonism More abstract than either Cubism or Futurism. Suprematism Complete abstraction. A very pure Geometric abstraction. Fine tuned response to modern feelings. Political Readiness to embrace the future. -Highly developed culture. Russian Folk Tradition -Very strong colourist tradition. -Mystical outlook. -Orthodox Church. -Their art had always had an abstract aspect.

53. "Colour is the keyboard, the eyes are the harmonies, the soul is the piano with many strings. The artist is the hand that plays, touching one key or another, to cause vibrations in the soul." ~ Wassily Kandinsky "There is no must in art because art is free." ~ Wassily Kandinsky “ Why should we not succeed in creating colour harmonies that correspond to our psychic state.” ~ Wassily Kandinsky Quotes

56. The Dead Sparrow, 1905, Oil on wood, 13 x 16.5cm

57. Marc’s colour theories He wrote: “ Blue is the male prinicple, stern and spiritual. Yellow the female principle, gentle, cheerful and sensual. Red is matter, brutal and heavy and always the colour which must be fought and vanquished by the other two. If, for example, you mix the serious, spiritual blue with red, then you augment the blue to an unbearable mourning, and the reconciling yellow, the complementary colour to violet, will be indispensible (the woman as consoler, not as lover). If you mix read and yellow, you give the passive and female yellow a sensual power, for which the cool, spiritual blue -the man- will again be indispensable, and certainly blue sets itself immediately and automatically next to orange; the colours love each other. Blue and orange, a thoroughly festive chord. But if you now mix blue and yellow to green, you bring red, the material, the earth to life. But here I, as a painter, always feel a difference: with green you never put the eternally material, brutal red to rest, as you do with the other colour chord (just imagine objects decorated in green and red). Blue (the heaven) and yellow (the sun) must always come to the aid of green again, to subdue the material.”

58. Franz Marc, Dog lying in the snow , 1910/11. Oil on canvas, 62 x 105cm.

60. Franz Marc, Horse in a landscape , 1910. Oil on canvas, 85 x 112cm.

62. Franz Marc, The Yellow Cow , 1911. oil on canvas, 140 x 190cm.

64. Franz Marc, The little Yellow Horses , 1912, Oil on canvas, 66 x 104cm.

65. Franz Marc, The Little Blue Horses , 1911, Oil on canvas, 61 x 101cm.

67. Franz Marc, Tiger , 1912. Oil on canvas, 111 x 111.5 cm

69. Marc, Deer in the Monastery Garden, 1912, Oil on canvas, 75 x 101 cm.

72. Franz Marc, Stables, 1913, Oil on canvas, 73 x 157 cm.

75. Franz Marc , Animal Destinies (The Trees show their Rings, the Animals their Veins), 1913. Oil on Canvas, 196 x 266 cm.

77. Franz Marc, Fighting Forms , 1914 Oil on Canvas, 91 x 131cm.

78. Broken Forms, 1914

80. Franz Marc - Tyrol (1914)

84. Gabrielle Munter, Boating , 1910. Oil on canvas, 1250 x 733cm Gabriele M ü nter Kandinsky and Erma Bossi at the Table in the Murnau House (1912)

85. Gabriele M ü nter . Meditation. 1917.

89. Macke, Girls Bathing with town in background , 1913, Oil on canvas,100x 80cm

90. Gino Severini, Dynamism of a Dancer . 1912

91. Auguste Macke, Coloured Forms II , 1913. Oil on cardboard, 36x31cm

92. Alexij von Jawlensky Girl in a Grey Apron. 1909. Lady in a Yellow Straw Hat. 1910. Variation, 1915