2. KANDINSKY’S LIFE
• Kandinsky was born in Moscow, Russia even though he lived in
Germany and France for most of his life.
• Kandinsky moved to Munich in 1896 and studied painting at the Munich
Academy
• Around 1910, Kandinsky paints his first abstract painting and starts the
Abstractionist movement.
• Kandinsky wrote a book called On the Spiritual in Art, which was
published in 1911.
• In 1912, he left NKVM and became one of the founders of the Blue Rider
in Munich, which is a group of artists that includes August Macke,
Arnold Schoenberg, and Robert Delaunay.
• Kandinsky was offered a job at the Bauhaus, which is an art school. He
taught from 1922 to 1933 and that was when the Nazis took over.
• Kandinsky died in 1944
3. BIG IDEA:1 MUSIC INFLUENCES KANDINSKY
Vasily Kandinsky was greatly influenced by music, specifically
Richard Wagner’s operas.
“The Soul is a piano with many strings, and the artist is the
hand that, by striking one particular key, causes the human
soul to vibrate” -Kandinsky
4. BIG IDEA 2: KANDINSKY LOVES COLOR
Composition IV, Improvisation VII,
1911 1910
“Color is the medium by which one can affect the sole
directly” -Kandinsky
5. BIG IDEA 3: KANDINSKY’S PAINTINGS ARE CHAOTIC
Picture With a Black Arch, Fantastic Improvisation,
1912 1913
• Lots of Movement
• No real order
• No symmetry
7. MALEVICH’S LIFE
• Kasimir Malevich was born in Kiev, Ukraine 1878
• In 1906, Malevich settles in Moscow and studies with Fedor Rerberg.
• Between 1912 and 1915, Malevich joined the Russian Futurist group.
• In 1915 Malevich starts his own small movement, Suprematism, by
submitting works like The Black Square to a Futurist exhibition.
Suprematism is a form of Abstractionism.
• In 1923, Malevich is appointed as the director of the Petrograd Museum
of Artistic Culture.
• Malevich died in 1935.
8. BIG IDEA 1: THE BLACK SQUARE
• First painted in 1915
• Represents and Expresses
nothing
• Ground Zero of painting
9. BIG IDEA 2: MALEVICH USES GEOMETRIC ABSTRACTION
Suprematist Painting, Supremus No. 58, 1916
1916
• Malevich is a Geometric Abstractionist
• Malevich uses more color than other Abstractionists
10. BIG IDEA 3: MALEVICH, A SPIRITUAL ABSTRACTIONIST
Red Square, 1915
• Kasimir Malevich believes that painting is by feeling and that art
is in its purest form when it is free of representing natural
objects.
12. FRANTISEK KUPKA’S LIFE
• Frantisek Kupka is born in Opocno, Bohemia, 1871 (Bohemia is
in the Czech Republic).
• Kupka moves to Vienna, Austria in 1892.
• In 1912 at the Salon d’ Automne in Paris his work enrages
French Critics because they did not blend well with French taste
and tradition.
• In 1923 Frantisek Kupka has his book published in Prague. The
book is called Creation in Plastic Art and it contains Kupka’s
theory of color.
• Kupka died in 1957.
13. BIG IDEA 1: KUPKA IS A SPIRITUAL ABSTRACTIONIST
Graduated Red
• Kupka was a young
daydreamer.
• Kupka’s paintings seem
dream-like.
14. BIG IDEA 2: KUPKA’S WORK INVOLVES
INTERCONNECTED RINGS AND OVALS
Localization of Graphic Motifs II, Disks of Newton, 1919
1912-13
• One unique theme aside from other abstractionism in the
paintings of Frantisek Kupka is the overlapping circle or oval
like structure.
15. THE EFFECT OF ABSTRACTIONISM
• Challenged the ideal perception of art.
• An original Artistic Idea.
• Its influence is seen
today.
Dancer Winter
Two 05
16. PUBLIC REACTION TO ABSTRACTIONISM
• Totalitarian leaders rejected Abstractionism.
• Abstractionism is criticized for expressing social
realities
• Abstractionism is criticized for lacking everything good
and pure in art.
• Criticized for being non-traditional.
17. ABSTRACTIONISM VS. ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM
Malevich, Red Square, 1915 Rothko, Four Darks in Red, 1958
• Aside from the fact that these art movements are from
different time periods, there is a noticeable difference
in brush stroke.
18. ABSTRACTIONISM VS. ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM CONTINUED
Kandinsky, First Abstract Pollock, Number 1, 1948
Watercolor, 1910
• Like the Abstract Expressionists, Kandinsky has a chaotic style but not
quite as chaotic as Pollock’s paintings.
