KANDINSKY’S UNIVERSE: GEOMETRIC ABSTRACTION
IN THE 20TH CENTURY AT MUSEUM BARBERINI
February 15, 2025 – May 18, 2025
KANDINSKY’S UNIVERSE: GEOMETRIC ABSTRACTION IN THE 20TH CENTURY AT
MUSEUM BARBERINI GERMANY
Sterre Barentsen, Curator
of the Exhibition, Museum Barberini
February 15, 2025
– May 18, 2025
In the early twentieth
century, a profound change occurred in painting: artists no longer sought to
represent the visible world, but instead embraced a new, universal pictorial
language that reduced artistic expression to the interaction of colors, lines,
and forms. In Europe and the United States, this radically modern approach gave
rise to multifaceted currents of geometric abstraction that tested the limits
of painting—from Suprematism and Constructivism, to the Bauhaus and British
postwar abstraction, to Hard Edge painting and Op Art.
Kandinsky’s Universe:
Geometric Abstraction in the 20th Century is the first exhibition in Europe to
tell the story of geometric abstraction not by presenting a series of national
movements, but by tracing the lines of connection between them. Twelve works by
Wassily Kandinsky—a key figure in abstraction who influenced generations of
artists with theoretical writings such as Point and Line to Plane—serve as a
thread running through the exhibition. A total of 125 paintings, sculptures,
and installations by seventy artists show how geometric abstraction challenged
the imagination of viewers again and again. The artists represented include
Josef Albers, Sonia Delaunay, Barbara Hepworth, El Lissitzky, Kasimir Malevich,
Agnes Martin, Piet Mondrian, Bridget Riley, Frank Stella, and Victor Vasarely.
Loans for the show come
from the Courtauld Gallery, London, the Fondation Beyeler, Riehen/Basel, the
Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæek (Denmark), the Fondation Gandur pour
l’Art, Geneva, and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice. The exhibition also
includes works from important American collections including the Whitney Museum
of American Art and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York as well as the
National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC.
WASSILY KANDINSKY: A
PIONEER OF ABSTRACTION
Wassily Kandinsky
(1866–1944) was one of the first painters to explore abstraction. By tracing
the stations of his life and the different phases of his abstract oeuvre, the
eight chapters of the exhibition Kandinsky’s Universe survey the most important
stages of geometric abstraction.
Sterre Barentsen,
curator of the exhibition:
“The development of the
exhibition from the artistic phases of Wassily Kandinsky’s career was genuinely
illuminating. The title Kandinsky’s Universe is an apt description of our
concept: it refers first of all to the incredibly diverse artistic environment
in which Kandinsky worked and which he decisively influenced throughout his
life. Again and again, his biography intersects with the major upheavals of the
first half of the twentieth century. As a result, his impact was
wide-ranging—whether on Russian Suprematism, the German Bauhaus, or the French
group Abstraction-Création. After Kandinsky’s death in 1944, European exiles
brought his ideas to the United States, where Hard Edge painting and Optical
Art emerged. But all of these currents also shared an intense interest in the
use of painterly means to represent space. Artists were fascinated by the
scientific and technological discoveries of their day, and they wanted their
art to express new experiences of space and time. In this respect, too,
Kandinsky was a pioneer.”
BEGINNINGS IN MUNICH AND
MOSCOW
Wassily Kandinsky was
born in Moscow and was initially trained as a legal scholar. In 1896, he began
studying art in Munich and from 1908 on showed his first Expressionist works,
characterized by bold colors and simplified forms. In the period that followed,
he founded the artists’ group Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider) and
increasingly turned his back on the direct representation of visible reality.
In 1911 he published his ground breaking theoretical work Concerning the
Spiritual in Art, which continued to influence the art world into the 1970s. In
it, Kandinsky took insights from the neurosciences related to music, dance,
physics, and biology and combined them with spiritual ideas such as theosophy,
which had strongly informed his oeuvre. His aim was to prove that colors and
geometric shapes inherently possessed—and stood in a reciprocal relationship
with—universal qualities.
After the outbreak of
World War I in 1914, Kandinsky was forced to leave Germany. He returned to
Moscow, where the first works of Suprematism and Constructivism had already
been produced. The artists’ groups to which Kasimir Malevich, Lyubov Popova,
Ivan Kliun, and El Lissitzky belonged envisioned a future in which art and
technology, spirit and mind were united. Their abstract pictorial language
based on lines and geometric planes became the expression of a utopia of
progress. In 1917, most artists in Russia devoted their efforts to the service
of the revolution and embraced industrial production; Kandinsky, who was more
interested in the psychological effect of art on human beings and was persuaded
of its “inner necessity,” became an outsider.
FROM THE BAUHAUS TO
FRANCE
In 1922, Kandinsky was
called to the Bauhaus in Weimar, where the artistic influences from Moscow with
their interpretation of squares, circles, triangles, and lines left their mark
on his work. Surrounded by Bauhaus masters such as Josef Albers, László Moholy-
Nagy, and Johannes Itten, his style became more analytical, his forms clearer.
In 1926, Kandinsky published Point and Line to Plane, an analysis of what he
viewed as the funda mental building blocks of art and their emotional effect.
Together with his Bauhaus
colleagues, Kandinsky also laid the foundation for Concrete Art, a movement
that developed during World War II among artists including Max Bill, Verena
Loewensberg, and Richard Paul Lohse. Inspired by mathematics and science, their
work is marked by bold colors and logically structured patterns, with no
reference to nature.
When the Bauhaus was
closed by the Nazi regime in 1933, Kandinsky once again had to leave Germany.
He moved to France, where he became a member of the artists’ group Abstraction-Création,
founded in 1931 in Paris. Associated with Piet Mondrian, Alexander Calder,
Sophie Tauber-Arp, and Marlow Moss, the artists in this group sought to promote
nonobjective art, thereby distancing themselves from the figuration of
Surrealism. In this milieu, Kandinsky created works that seem playful, but were
often inspired by scientific literature and remained indebted to a geometric
formal language. Even apart from the death blow dealt to artistic utopias of
progress by the rise of totalitarian systems, Kandinsky continued to view art
as a space for exploration of the spiritual. In 1944, Wassily Kandinsky died in
Neuilly-sur-Seine near Paris.
CONNECTIONS IN EXILE:
LONDON AND NEW YORK
World War II marked a
caesura in the development of geometric abstraction. With the German occupation
of Paris, many artists, art dealers, and critics fled to London before
emigrating to the United States. Under the influence of Barbara Hepworth and
Ben Nicholson, the British capital developed into a new center of geometric
abstraction. After World War II, the group of so-called Constructionists was
established in London, inspired by the Constructivists of the prewar years.
They employed newly developed synthetic materials such as plastic, acrylic, and
fiberglass in combination with wood and aluminum. Works by Mary Martin, Victor
Pasmore, and Kenneth Martin reflect the optimistic wave of modernization that
shaped postwar reconstruction.
In the United
States as well, the ideas of European exiles continued to influence the
evolution of geometric abstraction in the work of American artists. In the
1960s, Frank Stella, Ellsworth Kelly, and Carmen Herrera initiated the movement
known as Hard Edge painting. Characterized by clear forms, sharp contours, and
brilliant colors, it distanced itself from the expressive approach that had
dominated the New York art scene in the 1950s. A concurrent and contrasting
movement emerged with Minimalism, with works by Donald Judd, Jo Baer, and Agnes
Martin that embraced radical simplicity.
The artists of Op Art
(short for Optical Art) played with the limits of visual perception. Echoing
Wassily Kandinsky and Kasimir Malevich, who had experimented with floating
pictorial elements, Bridget Riley, Victor Vasarely, Richard Anuszkiewicz, and
Julian Stanczak introduced optical movement into static paintings. This
movement linked the discoveries of the Bauhaus on the effects of colors and
forms with the fascination for technology, space travel, and the visual
experience of television characteristic of the 1960s.
As Ortrud Westheider,
Director of the Museum Barberini, observes: “Kandinsky’s Universe clearly shows
how fearless, how radically modern geometric abstraction was at the time— in
obvious contradiction to the accusation sometimes leveled against it, that it
was cold or ‘lacking in content.’ In its response to scientific explorations of
spacial concepts, it always expressed and stimulated big ideas. As an
international language it transcended borders, at a time of political
nationalism and intolerance in the Europe of the 1930s and 1940s. The 125
exceptional loans in the exhibition illuminate the overarching narrative
running through geometric abstraction in its tremendous variety, and we are
delighted to be able to present this new perspective to the Barberini
audience.”
The exhibition presents
seven decades of geometric abstraction in 125 works by seventy artists. The
over forty international lenders include The Courtauld, London, the Louisiana
Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk (Denmark), the Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo,
the Fondation Gandur pour l’Art, Geneva, the Fondation Beyeler, Riehen/Basel,
the MOMus —Museum of Modern Art – Costakis Collection, Thessaloniki, the Peggy
Guggenheim Collection, Venice, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the Whitney
Museum of American Art, New York, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the National
Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, the Hamburger
Kunsthalle, and the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf, as well as
numerous private collectors whose works are seldom shown in public.
The exhibition was initiated by Daniel Zamani, curator at the Museum Barberini from 2018 to 2024. Already at the inception of the project, he collaborated with Sterre Barentsen, who took over responsibility for the exhibition as curator. She also oversaw the catalogue, a 288-page volume published by Prestel.
The exhibition was realized with the generous support of the Fondation Gandur pour l’Art, Genève.
SPIRIT AND TECHNOLOGY:
GEOMETRIC ART IN RUSSIA AND EASTERN EUROPE
After the outbreak of
World War I in 1914, Kandinsky returned from Munich to Moscow, where the first
Constructivist artworks had already emerged. The artists utilized lines and
geometric planes to create a universal visual language that expressed modernity
and progress.
After 1917, the new state
briefly supported avantgarde art forms to promote revolutionary ideals.
Kandinsky played a key role in this effort. As the founding director of a state
research institute, he investigated the psychological effects of art.
While the Constructivists
dedicated their work to industrial production, Kandinsky’s insis tence on the
spiritual dimension of art made him an outsider. In 1922, he returned to
Germany. His subsequent works reflect the influence of the geometric visual
language developed by his colleagues in Moscow.
STRAIGHT LINES, RIGHT
ANGLES: THE ABSTRACT RHYTHMS OF THE DE STIJL GROUP
In the Netherlands, Piet
Mondrian, Theo van Doesburg, and others founded the De Stijl group in 1917.
Inspired by spiritual ideas, jazz music, and urban life, they sought to give
visual form to rhythms and energies. Their art was characterized by straight
lines, right angles, and a palette of primary colors, black, and white. They
aimed to express balance and harmony, creating a model for social and architectural
transformation.
From its inception, De
Stijl had an international outlook; its founding manifesto was published in
four languages. Van Doesburg maintained close ties with the Bauhaus and
avant-garde artists across Europe. Mondrian’s move to Paris and later his exile
in London and New York further disseminated the movement’s ideas.
Even after the
dissolution of De Stijl in 1931, younger artists continued to adopt its
principles, further developing them with the use of diagonals, curves, and relief
elements.
UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE OF
ABSTRACTION: BAUHAUS AND CONCRETE ARTISTS
As a teacher at the
Bauhaus, founded in Weimar in 1919, Kandinsky continued to develop his theories
alongside other avant-garde artists. He developed a geometric visual language.
In his 1926 book Point and Line to Plane, he explored the fundamental elements
of art and their emotional resonance.
The Bauhaus curriculum
was shaped by a focus on color and form. The emphasis on geometric shapes
influenced not only painting but also design and industrial production.
Simplicity, functionality, and mass production were regarded as the
cornerstones of a modern, democratic society.
During World War II, Max
Bill, a former Bauhaus student, initiated the Concrete Art movement in Zurich.
This style is characterized by bold colors and logically structured
compositions. The term “concrete” underscores, even more strongly than
“abstract,” that these works have no connection to the visible world.
FLOWING FORMS:
INTERNATIONAL ABSTRACTION IN PARIS
After the forced closure
of the Bauhaus by the Nazi regime in 1933, Kandinsky emigrated to France.
There, he joined the group Abstraction-Création, an international forum for
abstract art. Many artists fled to Paris to escape political persecution.
Under the influence of
the Surrealists, Kandinsky began incorporating biomorphic forms into his works.
The dominance of the Surrealists, who focused on the unconscious, led to a
shift among many members of Abstraction-Création: rigid grid structures gave
way to playful compositions and organic shapes.
Kandinsky remained in
France until his death in 1944. Despite the turmoil of World War II, he
continued to explore the spiritual through his art. Many of his colleagues who
fled Europe never returned to Paris. In 1946, the Salon des Réalités Nouvelles
was founded to promote abstract art and revitalize the Parisian art scene.
BALANCED FORCES:
CONSRUCTIVIST UTOPIAS IN BRITISH ART
In the late 1930s, as the
threat of war loomed, many artists fled to Great Britain. London became a
center for geometric abstraction, with exiled artists such as Mondrian, Moholy
Nagy, and Gabo finding refuge there before emigrating to the United States.
Connections to British artists like Hepworth and Nicholson had already been
established through the Paris-based group Abstraction-Création.
Even before the bombing
of London in 1940, Hepworth and Nicholson moved to the artist colony in St.
Ives, Cornwall. There, they continued their work on reliefs and sculptures,
adapting geometric abstraction into three-dimensional forms. They were inspired
by the colors and shapes of the coastal landscape.
After the war, the
Constructionists group formed in London. Their reliefs, which resemble
industrial objects of the 1950s, incorporated new synthetic materials. These
works reflected the optimism and modernization of postwar reconstruction.
THE POWER OF COLOR: HARD
EDGE PAINTING
In the 1960s, geometric
abstraction in the United States turned to monumental formats. Artists focused
on basic shapes, sharp contours, and vibrant colors, moving away from the
expressive painting that had dominated the American art scene in the 1950s.
In Washington, a group
around Kenneth Noland developed special techniques: they poured or dragged
diluted paints over large areas of the canvas, experimenting with the
psychological effects of colors and their combinations.
New York artists like Al
Held and Frank Stella avoided expressive brushwork. In their style, known
as Hard Edge, color and form refer only to themselves. They reflected the
geometric abstraction of the prewar era but without pursuing utopian ideas.
Despite the rejection of narrative elements, often titles, compositions, and
color contrasts hint at cultural or personal contexts.
THE ESSENCE OF FORM:
TRANSATLANTIC MINIMALISM
Clear lines, industrial
materials, and a reduced color palette define Minimalism. In his 1964 text
“Specific Objects,” Donald Judd articulated the characteristics of this new
style. Throughout the 1970s, numerous artists in the United States and Europe
embraced Minimalism.
Rather than focusing on
emotion or symbolism, Minimalist works invite viewers to perceive subtle
nuances: the interplay of light and shadow on a surface, the texture of
materials, or the shifting relationship between object and space as the
observer moves.
Minimalism distanced
itself from the notion of the artwork’s uniqueness and concealed traces of
manual craftsmanship. Some artists even opted for industrial production of
their works. Canvases were treated not as image carriers but as objects—nails
form three-dimensional structures, grids overlap, and edges are painted.
SPACE AGE: OP ART IN THE
SIXTIES
Optical Art—Op Art for
short—challenges visual perception. Patterns on a two-dimensional surface
appear to move or protrude, creating an illusion that turns seeing into an
active experience.
As early as the 1910s and
1920s, artists like Malevich and Kandinsky had experimented with geometric
elements that seem to float or appear dynamic. Op Art built on this foundation.
It drew on the insights of color and form effects developed at the Bauhaus,
translating them for the 1960s aesthetic, which was shaped by technology, space
exploration, and the f licker of television screens.
Art that played with
optical effects emerged independently in various places. It was only recognized
as a distinct style in 1965 with the exhibition The Responsive Eye at
the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
LUMINOUS ILLUSIONS: THE
EFFECT OF THE SQUARE
The American Op Artists Richard Anuszkiewicz and Julian Stanczak were students of the former Bauhaus teacher Josef Albers. Albers had emigrated to the United States in 1933, where he began his series Homage to the Square. These geometric compositions continued the research on color and form, which he had begun at the Bauhaus alongside Kandinsky—they are considered precursors to Op Art.
Both students adopted Albers’ square framework. Like him, they explored how colors can seem opaque or transparent, and appear to advance or recede depending on their combination. However, they introduced brighter colors and stronger contrasts, creating intense effects that push the boundaries of perception.
PAUL REED
Coherence, 1966
Acrylic on
Canvas
Dimensions:
overall: 264.2 × 114.3 × 5.08 cm
National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift of Bill McGillicuddy in
Memory of Thomas W. Reed and Robert A. Reed
Paul Reed is
one of the founding artists of the Washington Color School. Born in Washington,
DC, he briefly attended San Diego State College and the Corcoran School of Art
before moving to New York City, where he worked as a magazine illustrator and
graphic designer (1942–1950). His time in New York coincided with the emergence
of abstract expressionism.
Reed returned
to Washington in 1950 to open his own graphic design firm. In 1952 he turned
his attention to painting. His long friendship with the painter Gene Davis
(1920–1985) had a formative influence on his art, as did his friendship with
Jacob Kainen, another leading Washington artist and teacher. In 1959, after an
abstract expressionist period, Reed began to stain colors on unprimed cotton
duck using Magna and water-based acrylics, building on techniques pioneered by
Morris Louis (1912–1962) and Kenneth Noland (1924–2010), who also worked in
Washington and had been inspired by the stained paintings of Helen
Frankenthaler in 1953.
Reed's first
solo show was in January 1963 at the Adams-Morgan Gallery in Washington,
followed by a solo exhibition in New York later that year. But it was a 1965
group show at the Washington Gallery of Modern Art entitled The Washington Color Painters (including
work by Reed, Noland, Louis, Davis, Thomas Downing, and Howard Mehring) that
received the greatest attention. These works were united by an exploration of
abstraction, a desire to experiment with materials and techniques (especially
staining), and a love of color. The innovations of what came to be called the
Washington Color School shaped new directions in abstract painting and
sculpture from the 1950s through the late 1970s and still resonate today.
The 1960s
marked the beginning of Reed's Upstarts, a series of paintings with bands of
hard-edge color moving in zigzag fashion or creating a grid across raw canvas.
In Coherence,
1966, one of the latter, Reed was inspired by the repeated rhythm of strong
lines in Jackson Pollock's Blue Poles (Number 11), 1952 (National Gallery of
Australia). Unlike Pollock's painting, however, Reed's is vertical and
decidedly nongestural.
Over the next
five decades, Reed created metal sculptures and photographic collages in
addition to paintings. He also made pastel drawings and shaped paintings, some
of which he nailed directly to the wall, as well as gouaches on Plexiglas
transferred to paper. Now in his nineties and living in the Virginia suburbs,
Reed continues to be remarkably productive and creative. His most recent work
features painting on pieces of thin fabric, which he hangs in windows to create
translucencies. This is the Gallery's first painting by the artist.
AL HELD
The Dowager Empress, 1965
Acrylic on Canvas
Dimensions: Overall: 96 1/4 × 72 1/8in. (244.5 × 183.2 cm)
Whitney Museum of American Art © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2025
© Al Held Foundation, Inc. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
KENNETH NOLAND
Half –
Time, 1964
ASOM Collection © VG Bild – Kunst, Bonn 2025
MIRIAM
SCHAPIRO
Jigsaw, 1969
Acrylic on
Canvas
Dimensions: 203.2 × 183.2 cm
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Purchase,
With Funds From Mr. and Mrs. Harry Kahn
FRANK STELLA
Double Scramble, 1978
Acrylic
on Canvas
Dimensions: 180 x 350 cm.
Private Collection, © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2025
GENE DAVIS
Black Popcorn, 1965
Acrylic on Canvas
Dimensions: Overall:
296.55 × 292.42 cm
Corcoran Collection (Museum Purchase and exchange)
FRANK STELLA
Sacramento Mall Proposal
#4, 1978
Acrylic on Canvas
Dimensions: 262.5 × 262.1 cm
National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; Gift of the
Collectors Committee © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2025
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FRANK STELLA
Slieve
More, 1964
Metallic
Powder in Polymer Emulsion
Dimensions: 195.3 ×
206.4 cm
Private
Collection, Switzerland, © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2025,
Courtesy of Lévy Gorvy Dayan
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CARMEN HERRERA
Diptych (Green &
Black), 1976
Acrylic
on Canvas
Dimensions: Each Panel: 114.9 x 101.6 x 3.8 cm
Estate of Carmen Herrera; Courtesy Private Collection and Lisson Gallery
MARY WEBB
Fritton, 1971
Oil on Canvas
Dimensions: 152.5 × 152.5 cm
Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, Norwich
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2025
PAUL HUXLEY
Untitled No. 51, 1966
Studio Paul Huxley
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BARBARA
HEPWORTH
Orpheus (Maquette I), 1956
Brass
With Cotton Strings
Dimensions: H 52.2 x W 22.5 x D 18.9 cm (E)
Pier Arts Centre, Stromness, Orkney
ANTHONY HILL
Progression
of Rectangles, Version II, 1954-1959
Dimensions: h. 405 x w. 405 x d. 45 mm
Sainsbury
Centre, University of East Anglia; Bequeathed
by Joyce
and Michael Morris, 2014
© VG
Bild – Kunst, Bonn 2025
Progression
of Rectangles marks Anthony
Hill’s transition from painting into creating artworks in relief. [1] The
subtle irregularity of the arrangement of rectangles along a central horizontal
axis develops directly from a series of paintings Hill had been working on
since 1953. [2] For this relief, the rectangles have been cut in black and
white plastic and placed on a transparent sheet, which has been mounted above a
plywood base panel using distancing pegs. This introduces a relationship
between the different surfaces and planes of Progression of
Rectangles that Hill went on to investigate more fully in the
constructed reliefs that dominated his consequent work.
Hill produced multiple versions of Progression of Rectangles in the mid-1950s. He had
originally hoped to display the relief in the experimental exhibition Artist vs Machine in 1954, which drew attention to
contemporary abstract artists’ creative use of industrial materials and
techniques. However, Progression of Rectangles was
not complete in time and Hill’s relief was first shown in Nine Abstract Artists, which opened at the Redfern Gallery
in London in January 1955. [3] This seminal exhibition, organised by the artist
Adrian Heath, was used to set out the new approaches to non-figurative art that
the group of British artists selected had been exploring since the late 1940s.
By early 1956 Hill had abandoned
painting and focused on constructing carefully balanced geometric reliefs in a
range of industrial materials. In 1958 Hill displayed Progression of Rectangles, Version II in the ICA
Library in London, as part of the exhibition Anthony Hill:
Recent Constructions. [4] He made Michael Morris an additional copy
of this work in 1959.
Lisa Newby, January 2021
[1] Alastair Grieve ‘The development of
Anthony Hill’s work from 1950 to the present’ in Anthony Hill, A Retrospective Exhibition, exh.
cat. (London: Hayward Gallery, 1983), pp.5-67, (p.18).
[2] For related examples in the
Sainsbury Centre collection, see 31581, 31682 and 31688.
[3] Grieve, 1983, p.18.
[4] Anthony Hill:
Recent Constructions, ICA Library, London, 13 February – 8 March,
1958. Cat. No. 1.
MARY MARTIN
White –
Faced Relief, 1959
Dimensions: h. 640 x w. 945 x d. 115 mm
Sainsbury
Centre, University of East Anglia © Paul Martin
© Estate
of Kenneth and Mary Martin
ELLSWORTH KELLY
Blue
Yellow, 1968
Private Collection © Ellsworth Kelly Foundation
WASSILY
KANDINSKY
White Sound, 1908
Dimensions: 70.0 ×
70.0 cm
Private Collection
WASSILY KANDINSKY
White Sound, 1908 (Detail)
WASSILY
KANDINSKY
In the Black Square 1923
Oil on Canvas
Dimensions: 97.5 x
93.3 cm
Solomon R. Guggenheim
Museum, New York
Solomon R. Guggenheim
Founding Collection, By gift
© 2023 Artists Rights
Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris
When Kandinsky returned
to his native Moscow after the outbreak of World War I, his expressive abstract
style underwent changes that reflected the utopian artistic experiments of the
Russian avant-garde. The emphasis on geometric forms, promoted by artists such
as Kazimir Malevich,
Aleksandr Rodchenko, and Liubov Popova in
an effort to establish a universal aesthetic language, inspired Kandinsky to
expand his own pictorial vocabulary. Although he adopted some aspects of the
geometrizing trends of Suprematism and Constructivism—such
as overlapping flat planes and clearly delineated shapes—his belief in the
expressive content of abstract forms alienated him from the majority of his
Russian colleagues, who championed more rational, systematizing principles.
This conflict led him to return to Germany in 1921. In the Black Square,
executed two years later, epitomizes Kandinsky’s synthesis of Russian
avant-garde art and his own lyrical abstraction: the white trapezoid recalls
Malevich’s Suprematist paintings, but the dynamic compositional elements,
resembling clouds, mountains, sun, and a rainbow, still refer to the landscape.
In 1922 Kandinsky joined
the faculty of the Weimar Bauhaus,
where he discovered a more sympathetic environment in which to pursue his art.
Originally premised on a Germanic, expressionistic approach to artmaking, the
Bauhaus aesthetic came to reflect Constructivist concerns and styles, which by
the mid-1920s had become international in scope. While there, Kandinsky
furthered his investigations into the correspondence between colors and forms
and their psychological and spiritual effects. In Composition 8, the
colorful, interactive geometric forms create a pulsating surface that is
alternately dynamic and calm, aggressive and quiet. The importance of circles
in this painting prefigures the dominant role they would play in many
subsequent works, culminating in his cosmic and harmonious image Several
Circles. “The circle,” claimed Kandinsky, “is the synthesis of the greatest
oppositions. It combines the concentric and the eccentric in a single form and
in equilibrium. Of the three primary forms, it points most clearly to the
fourth dimension.”
Nancy Spector
EL LISSITZKY
Untitled, 1919/20
Oil on
Canvas
Dimensions: 79.6 x 49.6 cm
© Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice
(Solomon
R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York)
Peggy Guggenheim
Collection, Venice (Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York)
This
painting reveals the principles of Suprematism that El Lissitzky absorbed under
the influence of Kazimir Malevich in 1919–20. Trained as an engineer and
possessing a pragmatic temperament, Lissitzky soon became one of the leading
exponents of Constructivism . In the 1920s, while living in Germany, he became
an important influence on both the De Stijl group and the artists of the
Bauhaus. Like Malevich, he believed in a new art that rejected traditional
pictorial structure, centralized compositional organization, mimesis, and
perspectival consistency. In this work the ladder of vividly colored forms
seems to be floating through indeterminate space. Spatial relationships are
complicated by the veil of white color that divides these forms from the major gray
diagonal. The linkage of elements is not attributable to a mysterious magnetic
pull, but is indicated in a literal way by the device of a connecting
threadlike line. The winding line changes color as it passes through the
various rectangles that may serve as metaphors for different cosmic planes.
https://www.guggenheim-venice.it/en/art/works/untitled-39/
EL LISSITZKY
Proun 93 (Conic), Ca. 1923
Pencil, Black Ink, Pen,
Gouache, Colored Pencils
Dimensions: 499 x 497 mm
Kulturstiftung
Sachsen-Anhalt, Kunstmuseum Moritzburg Halle (Saale)
LJUBOW POPAWA
Spatial Force
Construction, 1920/21
Oil and
Marble Dust on Plywood Painting
Dimensions: 1123
x 1125 mm.
MOMus –
Museum of Modern Art –
Costakis Collection, Thessaloniki
WASSILY KANDINSKY
White Cross, 1922
Oil on Canvas
Dimensions: 100.5 x
110.6 cm
© 2023 Artists Rights
Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris
The Solomon R. Guggenheim
Foundation Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, 1976 Wassily
Kandinsky referred to the early 1920s as his “cool period.” From this time
geometric shapes became increasingly prevalent in his work, often floating in
front of or within a broad plane, as in White Cross. Here straight lines
and circles offset looser, organic forms and irregularly geometric shapes. A
corresponding variation of brushstroke produces highly active passages
contrasting with less inflected areas. Some shapes may have their distant
origins in a naturalistic vocabulary of forms. Thus, the fishlike crescent and
the lancing black diagonal that crosses it, which appear also in the
related Red Oval of 1920 (Collection Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York),
may recall the boat with oars in earlier works. However, the motifs are
stripped of their representational meaning and do not contribute to an
interpretation of the whole in terms of realistic content.
The title isolates a
detail of the composition, the white cross at upper right, a formal consequence
of the checkerboard pattern (a recurrent motif in works of this period). In
this instance negative space is treated as positive form. Once the cross of the
title is seen, one begins to perceive throughout the work a proliferation of
others, varying in degrees of explicitness. Though Kandinsky, like Kazimir Malevich, uses it as an abstract
element, the cross is an evocative, symbolic form.
The viewer’s compulsion
to read imagery literally is used to unexpected ends by Kandinsky, who includes
two signs resembling the numeral 3 upended and affixed to directional arrows.
The variations in direction of the resulting forms suggest the rotation of the
entire canvas. The antigravitational feeling of floating forms and the
placement of elements on a planar support against an indefinite background
in White Cross reveal affinities with Malevich’s Suprematist works.
Lucy Flint
WASSILY KANDINSKY
White Cross, 1922 (Detail)
ALEXANDER
EXTER
Construction
of Colors 1921,
Albertina
Vienna Private Collection
LÁSZLÓ
MOHOLY-NAGY
Composition Z
VIII, 1924
Distemper on
Canvas
Dimensions: 114 × 132 cm
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Neue Nationalgalerie
LÁSZLÓ MOHOLY-NAGY
Composition Z VIII, 1924 (Detail)
LJUBOW POPAWA
Painterly
Architectonies, 1918/19
MOMus –
Museum of Modern Art –
Costakis Collection, Thessaloniki
ALEXANDER
RODTSCHENKO
Linearism,
1920
Oil on Canvas
Dimensions: 110.5 x 78cm
MOMus –
Museum of Modern Art –
Costakis Collection, Thessaloniki, VG Bild Kunst, Bonn 2025
ILYA CHASHNIK
Süprematist
Cross, 1923
MOMus –
Museum of Modern Art –
Costakis Collection, Thessaloniki
IVAN KLIUN
Red Light:
Spherical Composition, 1923
MOMus—Museum
of Modern Art—
Costakis Collection, Thessaloniki
WASSILY KANDINSKY
Pfeil Zum Kreis, 1930
Oil on Canvas
Dimensions: 80.4 x 110.5 cm.
Nahmad Collection
WASSILY KANDINSKY
Pfeil Zum Kreis, 1930 (Detail)
AUGUSTE
HERBIN
Good, 1952
© Crédit photographique : Fondation Gandur pour l’Art, Genève.
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2025
JEAN HÉLION
Abstract Composition, 1932
© Crédit photographique : Fondation Gandur pour l’Art, Genève.
ALEXANDER
CALDER
Untitled, 1963
Sheet Metal,
Wire, and Paint
Dimensions: 60" × 72" × 30"
© Crédit photographique : Fondation Gandur pour l’Art, Genève.
© 2022 Calder Foundation, New York / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
WASSILY KANDINSKY
Red Knot, 1936
Fondation Marguerite et Aimé Maeght, Saint-Paul de Vence
JEAN HÉLION
Untitled,
1935
Fondation Gandur pour l’Art, Genève
JO DELAHAUT
Clostra, 1950
Oil on Canvas
Dimensions: 100
x 80 cm
© Crédit photographique : Fondation Gandur pour l’Art, Genève.
ANTOINE
PEVSNER
Construction
in the Third and Fourth Dimension, 1961
Lehmbruck Museum, Duisburg
WASSILY KANDINSKY
Accompanied Center, 1937
Dimensions: 301 x 225
Nahmad Collection
WASSILY KANDINSKY
Accompanied Center, 1937 (Detail)
MUSEUM BARBERINI GERMANY
Located in Potsdam’s
historic center, the Museum Barberini is an art museum that was initiated by
Hasso Plattner, the founder of the German software company SAP and a patron of
the arts. Since its opening in 2017, the Barberini has established itself as
one of the most popular art museums in Germany with international exhibitions
and an extraordinary collection of Impressionist paintings.
ABOUT THE MUSEUM
BARBERINI
The Museum
Barberini is dedicated to collecting, researching, presenting, educating, and
inspiring. In addition to the Hasso Plattner Collection, it features up to
three special exhibitions each year in collaboration with international
partners. From Pablo Picasso, Vincent van Gogh, Rembrandt van Rijn, and Gerhard
Richter to ancient sculpture, French Impressionism, and Baroque painting, the
Museum Barberini embraces all styles and eras, and aims to continually offer
new perspectives on art.
A CENTER FOR
IMPRESSIONIST PAINTING
In addition to
its special exhibitions, the Museum Barberini permanently showcases the
extensive collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings of the
museum’s founder, Hasso Plattner, including masterpieces by Claude Monet,
Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Berthe Morisot, Gustave Caillebotte, and Paul Signac.
115 works by 23 artists present the history of French Impressionism—from
its beginnings in the nineteenth century to its further development through the
Pointillists and Fauves in the early twentieth century. With 40 paintings
by Claude Monet, there is no venue in Europe outside of Paris that shows more
works by this artist. This makes Potsdam one of the most important centers of
Impressionism in the world.
ENCOUNTERING
ART
The exhibitions are accompanied
by an extensive program of events and education, including symposia, readings,
tours, concerts, film evenings, and workshops that encourage a lively artistic
discourse. In a similar way, with changing online resources, Barberini Digital
brings the museum’s works and their stories to the digital realm, opening up
new approaches to art. The experience is completed by the museum shop and the
Barberini cafés that offer panoramas of the old market square with its Italian
flair and the so-called Freundschaftsinsel on the river Havel.
In addition to its offerings of
art, culture, and history, Potsdam also gives visitors an opportunity to enjoy
nature. We recommend that you explore the historic city center, the numerous palaces
and extensive gardens of the former royal residence, as well as the idyllic
landscape surrounding the Havel on the outskirts of Potsdam.
NEIGHBORHOOD AND SURROUNDINGS
Over 250 years ago, Frederick the Great built the Palais Barberini on the old market square, Alter Markt, in the historic center of Potsdam. The Baroque building, which the citizens of Potsdam referred to as a “palace” well into the twentieth century, had an eventful history—from a building used for housing and cultural events to one serving municipal administrative functions until it was destroyed at the end of World War II. Since the building was reconstructed in 2017, the Museum Barberini, through its art exhibitions, returns the site to its original purpose as a venue for culture.
THE HISTORY OF THE
BUILDING
The
Barberini Palace: A Royal Idea
The Barberini
Palace was built in 1771–72 under Frederick the Great as a grand townhouse in
close proximity to the City Palace or Stadtschloss. Along with the Church of
St. Nicholas and the Old City Hall, this ensemble on the old market square,
Alter Markt, was long the centerpiece of the royal seat of the Prussian kings.
Designed by the architects Georg Christian Unger and Carl von Gontard, the
palace was modeled after the Baroque Palazzo Barberini in Rome. The building
was modified and remodeled in the mid-nineteenth century under King Frederick
William IV. Two wings on the backside created new living spaces, and both upper
floors contained stately rooms that were intended for use by cultural
institutions in Potsdam.
A HOUSE FOR
THE CITIZENS
Since
the mid-nineteenth century the Palais Barberini on the banks of the river Havel
provided centrally located housing for the people of Potsdam as well as a stage
for public life, art, and culture. In addition to many exhibitions, art
lotteries, and readings, great artists such as Clara Schumann, Anton
Rubinstein, and Wilhelm Furtwängler gave concerts here. Later, even films were
shown here in the city’s first cinema, Clou Potsdams. Until well into World War
II, there was a library here, as well as a youth hostel and a registry office
for civil unions.
The building was destroyed in
April 1945 during an Allied air attack, and the ruins were torn down in 1948.
During the GDR era the site was used as a park and a parking lot. In 1989,
still under the SED government, construction of a municipal theater began.
Following the Fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Germany, the shell
of the theater was demolished and a temporary theater that was clad in aluminum
siding and known as the “can” was built in 1991. The temporary theater
continued to be used until 2006.
RECONSTRUCTION OF
POTSDAM’S HISTORIC CENTER
In 2005 it was
decided that the historic center of Potsdam would be reconstructed to
recreate a square that was once considered one of the most
magnificent ones in Europe. As part of the plan,
the Palais Barberini, one of the characteristic buildings of Potsdam,
was to be reconstructed as close to its original form as possible. In
addition to the façade, the floorplan, proportions, and details such as
the portico were to correspond to the design of the earlier
building. In a short period of construction lasting from 2013 to
2016, the museum that was designed by the
architects Hilmer & Sattler und Albrecht, was built to the most
modern specifications. The project was initiated and made possible by
the Hasso Plattner Foundation.
https://www.museum-barberini.de/en/museum/695/about-the-museum
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JOSEF ALBERS
Study for
Homage to the Square, 1965
Oil on Masonite
Dimensions: 81 x 81 cm.
Josef Albers Museum Quadrat Bottrop, © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2025
JOSEF ALBERS
Study for
Homage to the Square: Corona, 1968
Oil on Masonite
Dimensions: 81 x 81 cm.
Josef Albers Museum Quadrat Bottrop, © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2025
RICHARD PAUL
LOHSE
Center of
Four Squares as a Result of the
Four Cross
Surfaces, 1952/1971
Richard Paul Lohse-Stiftung
VARENA
LOEWENSBERG
Untitled,
1965
Private
Collection, Switzerland, Courtesy of Henriette Coray Loewensberg,
Verena Loewensberg Estate Zurich
JOSEF ALBERS
Homage to the
Square: Mitered Square, 1967
Oil on Masonite
Dimensions: 122 x 122 cm.
Josef Albers Museum Quadrat Bottrop,
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2025
JEAN LEPPIEN
LXVIII, 1949
© Crédit photographique : Fondation Gandur pour l'Art, Genève.
JOHANNES ITTEN
Stäbe und
Flächen, 1955
Oil on
Harboard
Dimensions: 100
x 72 cm
Acquired
in 1980
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2025, Photo: Andreas Freytag, Stuttgart
WASSILY
KANDINSKY
Emphasized
Corners, 1923
Nahmad Collection
CAMILLE GRAESER
1 : 2 : 3 : 4, 1969
Oil on Canvas,
Dimensions: 120 x 120 cm
B 1969.7
Zürich, Camille Graeser Stiftung
© Camille Graeser Stiftung / Pro Litteris Zürich
RICHARD PAUL
LOHSE
Thirty
Vertical Systematic Color Series in a
Yellow
Rhombic Form, 1943/1970
Dimensions: 165
× 165 cm
©Richard Paul Lohse-Stiftung / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2025
MAX BILL
Reflection
From Dark and Light, 1975
Dr. Angela
Thomas, Haus Bill Zumikon, Switzerland.
www.maxbill.ch © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2025, Photo: Hauser & Wirth
WASSILY
KANDINSKY
Above and
Left, 1925
Oil on
Cardboard
Dimensions: 70 × 50 cm
Private Collection
WASSILY KANDINSKY
Above and Left, 1925 (Detail)
SONIA
DELAUNAY
Bing, 1967
Dimensions: h. 2030 x w. 1650 x d. 15 mm
Sainsbury Centre, University of East Anglia
JEAN GORIN
Spatio-Temporelle
Plastique Composition, 1962
Wood, Paint
Dimensions: 152,5
× 45,5 × 45 cm
Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo
CÉSAR DOMELA
Neoplastic
Composition 5a, 1924
Triton
Collection Foundation
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2025
MARLOW MOSS
Composition in White, Red, and Gray, 1935
Oil on Canvas
Dimensions: 56 x 56 cm
Private Collection, The Netherlands
PIET MONDRIAN
Composition
With Yellow, 1930
Oil on Canvas
Dimensions: 46
x 46.5 cm
Kunstsammlung Nordhein-Westfalen Düsseldorf
PIET MONDRIAN
Composition
With Yellow and Blue, 1932
Oil on Canvas
Dimensions: 55.5 x 55.5 cm
Fondation Beyeler, Riehen/Basel, Beyeler Collection, Purchased with
Generous
Support by Hartmann P. and Cécile Koechlin-Tanner, Riehen
BURGOYNE
DILLER
Third
Theme 1946 – 1948
Oil on
Linen
Dimensions: Overall: 106.7 × 106.7
cm
© Estate
of Burgoyne Diller/Licensed by
VAGA at
Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
In the
mid-1930s, Burgoyne Diller was one of the first American artists to adopt the
strict grammar and limited vocabulary of Neo-Plasticism, also known as De
Stijl. This systematic approach to painting, advocated by the Dutch artist Piet
Mondrian, replaced the curves of nature with a man-made geometric order: only
right angles and straight lines were permitted; the palette was restricted to
primary colors, plus black and white; and any illusion of depth was to be
avoided. Like the Neoplastic artists, Diller was primarily concerned with
achieving a sense of formal balance, stability, and structure through the use
of horizontal and vertical lines and primary colors. He believed that the
geometric calculations of his canvases were well suited to a modern,
industrialized world, offering an experience free of unnecessary and antiquated
embellishments. At the end of his life, in the 1960s, Diller retrospectively
categorized his work from the previous decades into three numbered groups: the
First Theme includes rectangles arranged without a grid structure; in the
Second Theme paintings, the rectangles cross to form single grids; in the Third
Theme, including this painting, the forms are organized in an elaborate grid
structure.
FRITZ GLARNER
Relational
Painting 1949–1951
Oil on canvas
Dimensions: Overall: 165.1 × 132.1
cm
Whitney Museum of Art, New York
© Nachlass Fritz Glarner, Kunsthaus Zürich
SOPHIE
TAEUBER-ARP
Twelve Spaces
with Planes, Angular Bands, and Laid with Circles, 1939
Oil and
Pencil on Canvas
Dimensions: 80.5 × 116 cm
Kunsthaus Zürich; Gift from Hans Arp, 1958
DONALD JUDD
Untitled, 1969
Stainless Steel and Plexiglass
Dimensions: 15 x 69 x 61.5 cm.
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Nationalgalerie, Marzona Collection,
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2025 / Photo: Jens Ziehe, Berlin
FRANÇOIS
MORELLET
Untitled, 1970
© Crédit photographique : Fondation Gandur pour l’Art, Genève.
FRANÇOIS
MORELLET
Œuvre Unique et Pas Chère 1ter, 1970
Silkscreen
Ink on Paper
Dimensions: 30
x 30 cm. (11.8 x 11.8 in.)
© Crédit photographique : Fondation Gandur pour l’Art, Genève.
FRANÇOIS
MORELLET
Œuvre Unique et Pas Chère 1 (6), 1970
Dimensions: 30
x 30 cm
© Crédit photographique : Fondation Gandur pour l’Art, Genève.
FRANÇOIS
MORELLET
2 Trames de Grillage -4° +4° (# 19 mm), 1972
© Crédit photographique : Fondation Gandur pour l’Art, Genève.
FRANÇOIS
MORELLET
3 Doubles Trames 0° 30° 60°, 1971
Dimensions: 79.5
x 79.5 cm. (31.3 x 31.3 in.)
© Crédit photographique : Fondation Gandur pour l’Art, Genève.
WOJCIECH FANGOR
B15, 1964
Oil on Canvas
Dimensions: 130.5 x 130.2
ASOM Collection
WASSILY KANDINSKY
In The Black Circle, 1923
Private Collection: Sophie Taeuber-Arp
VICTOR
VASARELY
Yabla, 1961
Oil on Canvas
Dimensions: 159 x 90 cm.
ASOM Collection
VICTOR
VASARELY
Vegaviv II,
1955
Vinyl Paint
on Wood Panel
Dimensions: 113.7 × 76.2 cm
Fondation Gandur Pour l’Art, Genève
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2025
Whirligig,
1964
Acrylic on
Canvas
Dimensions: 38 x 38 inches
framed: 41 1/8 x 41 1/8 inches
D. Wigmore Fine Art, Inc.,
VICTOR VASARELY
Boglar I, 1966
Acrylic on Canvas
Dimensions: 250 x 250cm
ASOM Collection © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2025
BRIDGET RILEY
Clepsydra 1,
1976
Acryl on Linen
Dimensions: 202 x 257 cm
The Lambrecht-Schadeberg Collection,
Museum Für
Gegenwartskunst Siegen © Bridget Riley
RICHARD
ANUSZKIEWICZ
Metamorphosis
of Cadmium Red - Blue Line, 1979
The Estate of Richard Anuszkiewicz, VG-Bild Kunst, Bonn 2025
JULIAN
STANCZAK
Green Light,
1973
Acrylic on
canvas
Dimensions: 153 x 153 cm
Collection of the Estate of Julian Stanczak, courtesy of The Mayor Gallery, London
JULIAN STANCZAK
Firefly, 1973
Acrylic on Canvas
Dimensions: 152.5 x 152.5 cm.
Collection David and Kathryn Birnbaum © Estate of JulianStanczak,
RICHARD
ANUSZKIEWICZ
Monument
Valley, 1970
Acrylic on Canvas
Dimensions: 48 x 48 in.
Estate of Richard Anuszkiewicz
RICHARD
ANUSZKIEWICZ
Orange
Delight, 1969
Acrylic on Canvas, Five Parts
Dimensions: 306.1 × 306.5 cm
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
KANDINSKY’ SYNTHESIS BRIDGING ART, SCIENCE, AND SPIRITUALITY
BY JOHN E. BOWLT & NICOLETTA MISLER
A major paradigmatic
shift in twentieth-century Western art was the departure from figurative
representation in favor of abstraction, a shift often reduced to a precarious,
almost neurotic, bipolarity: on one side, the strict geometrization of forms;
on the other, the flowing abstraction of internal visions and extrasensory
ideas. One of the leading protagonists of this tendency was Wassily Kandinsky,
whose work highlights the synergies between art and science. Associated with
diverse cultural and intellectual circles of Europe, Kandinsky had access to
pioneering artistic and scientific experiments. His early treatise Concerning
the Spiritual in Art already drew on neuroscience and spiritual concepts to
suggest that geometric planes and colors possess universal, interrelated
qualities. His engagement with scientific principles deepened in 1921 at the
Russian Academy of Artistic Sciences in Moscow (RAKhN), where he collaborated
with experts in fields such as psychology and crystallography, further probing
the formal and psy chological dimensions of art.
Kandinsky’s paintings as
well as his theoretical writings reveal that the abovementioned
polarities—between geometric precision and lyrical abstraction, science and
spirit, and the organic and inorganic—are far less rigid than assumed.¹
THE SCIENCE OF ART
On December 29 and 31,
1911, Nikolai Kulbin, a painter, physician, and friend of Kandinsky, delivered
Concerning the Spiritual in Art on Kandinsky’s behalf. At the time, Kandinsky
was living in Munich, where he had just published the German edition of his
treatise.² The reading took place at the Second All-Russian Congress of Artists
in St. Petersburg, a three-day gathering of painters, sculptors, art
historians, and teachers that featured a wide variety of lectures and
discussions. Kandinsky’s contribution was among the most radical and
provocative.
In the three-volume
edition of the congress’s transactions, a single full-page color illus tration
appeared (fig. 1): a triad of yellow triangle, blue circle, and red
square. Kandinsky used this image to demonstrate the effects of different
backgrounds on colors and to suggest that specific shapes and colors have
intrinsic, universal relationships. This diagram serves as a precursor to the
stripped-down geometry that Kazimir Malevich developed in his Suprematist
works, which he first exhibited in 1915 (→ p. 267).
Concerning the Spiritual
in Art has been extensively discussed and annotated,³but it is especially
relevant for understanding the geometric and formulaic elements of Kandinsky’s
creative output. All the versions of the treatise carry numerous illustrations
of geometric figures. A central thesis of the paper is that a work of art can
be at least partially “explained” by reason and deduction. Kandinsky theorizes
that geometric forms—such as the triangle, square, and circle—have vibrational
correspondences and, much like music notes, evoke certain emotions. For
example, the triangle is sharp and active, symbolizing energy, movement, and
change. Analyzing geometry can therefore help reveal the inner content of a
composition. On this level, Kandinsky’s arguments help us understand his own
evolution from the free lyricism of the early period to the geometric
compositions of the 1920s and 1930s.
Convinced that “every
form has its content,” Kandinsky was not alone in his pursuit of a geometric
alphabet.⁴ He shared his methodology with numerous artists, not least Malevich,
who depicted squares, circles, triangles, and crosses to illustrate his theory
of a Suprematist “alphabet” consisting of thirty-four black characters
(fig. 2).⁵ Considering this analogy, one might surmise that Kandinsky’s In
the Black Square from 1923 (cat. 21) was a comment on Malevich’s Black
Square of 1915 (fig. p. 72). For Kandinsky, there were ultimately two geometric
orders: one mathematical and calculable, the other hermetic and approximate—a
conflict of interests that accompanied and stimulated his artistic evolution.
The nervous tension and
physical exertion Kandinsky seemed to experience as he painted his first
abstract masterpieces—works not yet soberly geometric—are documented in a
sequence of photographs of Composition VII taken by his partner at the
time, artist Gabriele Münter. These images capture the spiritual labor—and
pangs of creation—that Kandinsky endured between November 25 and 29, 1913
(fig. 3).⁶ The final version of the large oil painting (fig. 4) was
the culmination of at least twenty drawings and watercolors as well as six
prelim inary oil sketches. It was a long and elaborate process that, as
Kandinsky affirmed, could be perceived as a metaphor for procreation: “A true
work of art emerges ‘from the artist.’ Born of the artist, the artwork acquires
an independent life, itself becoming a personality, an independent, thinking,
breathing subject that also leads a material life.”⁷
Kandinsky’s Concerning
the Spiritual in Art is concerned with the effort to reduce the intangible—inspiration,
the soul, and harmony—into geometric forms and color vibrations, effectively
the “materialization of spiritual values.”⁸ Kandinsky concluded that, for
example, a “large, acute-angled triangle divided into unequal segments with the
narrowest segment upwards—that is the spiritual life conceived as a precise
scheme.”⁹ The triangle motif continued to haunt Kandinsky even during the
Bauhaus years, as seen in paintings Silent (cat. 80) and Above and Left
(cat. 78). His analysis of the basic elements of form (such as color,
plane, volume, space, time, movement) coincided with a burgeoning “science of
art.”¹⁰ Kandinsky was aware of the emerging discipline of Kunstwissenschaft,
which was not only focused on historical or biographical analyses but also on
the formal and psychological aspects of art. In the spring of 1920, as the
founding director of the Institute of Artistic Culture (INKhUK), Kandinsky
outlined its primary objective as the development of a science of art—an
objective that he continued to pursue, even after he left the institute in
January 1921, and helped shape when the Russian Academy of Artistic Sciences
(RAKhN) was founded that same year.
NEUROSCIENCE, MEMORY, AND
THEOSOPHICAL THOUGHT
Kandinsky’s theory that
geometric shapes and colors evoke specific emotional and spiritual responses
seems to have been influenced by an unexpected source: the memory training
experiments of neuroscientist Fedor Rybakov. Like Kandinsky, he explored
psychological responses to color through instructive tables (figs. 5, 6). In
his experiments, he studied how the selection and grouping of visual
matches—recognizing patterns and connections between colors and shapes—could
enhance memory retention. While Kandinsky referred to the “psychic effects of
color,” Rybakov spoke of their “higher psychic functions.”¹¹
Rybakov served as the
head of the Department of Experimental Psychology and the Psychiatric Clinic at
Moscow University, where Kandinsky also taught in 1919. A prominent
psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, he specialized in environmental psychology,
with a particular interest in the effects of mental “abnormality” on artistic
and literary creativity, and vice versa.¹² Rybakov’s Psychiatric Clinic, with
its various laboratories, so-called cabinets, library, and photo- laboratory,
may have inspired the departmental structure of RAKhN. Rybakov replicated this
model on a smaller scale at the Moscow Psychoneurological Institute, which he
cofounded and directed in 1920. Incidentally, in June of the following year,
RAKhN occupied the institute building at 32 Prechistenka, where Kandinsky
served as its vice president and chair of its Physico-Psychological
Department.¹³
In developing his initial
plan for the department, Kandinsky envisioned a program that had the aim of
examining the visual arts from a synthetic perspective—incorporating aesthetic,
formal, scientific, spiritual, and psychological viewpoints. By 1921–22,
Kandinsky’s department became the guiding force of RAKhN, addressing subjects
such as Gestalt theory, hypnosis, dreams, psychoanalysis, physiology of
perception and the unconscious, and their relation to the artistic process.
Among these, the notion of “improvisation as the revelation of the un
conscious” (a theme that particularly appealed to Kandinsky) received
significant attention.¹⁴ Kandinsky was intrigued by the intersection of
psychological sciences and philosophical idealism. To advance this interest,
during his brief tenure, he facilitated no fewer than nineteen lectures by
leading psychologists, physicists, art historians, and philosophers—such as
Ivan Ermakov, Semen Frank, Pavel Kapterev, Petr Lazarev, Aleksandr Samoilov,
and Aleksei Sidorov—on the mechanics of perception.¹⁵ They strove to
demonstrate the influence of both “physiology” and “psyche” on the artistic
process.
The prominent scientists
who collaborated with Kandinsky in RAKhN’s Physico-Psycho logical Department,
especially the psychologists Georgy Chelpanov and Vladimir Ekzempliarsky,
specialists in the art of mentally ill people, were undoubtedly familiar with
Rybakov’s research. It is reasonable to assume that Kandinsky and Rybakov, both
mentors at Moscow University and advocates of the “physiological” and the
“psychological,” had been personally acquainted. Kandinsky also published his
article “Whither the ‘New’ Art?” a year after Rybakov’s 1910 essay, also on
contemporary culture, with the very similar title “Whither are We Going?”¹⁶
Kandinsky’s colored chart for Concerning the Spiritual in Art shows a parallel
to Rybakov’s contemporaneous “Mnemonic for Geometric Figures and Colors”
(fig. 6), while Rybakov’s illustrations of “Fantasy” (fig. 7) could be
elements from Kandinsky’s Improvisations, foreshad owing Hermann Rorschach’s
projective inkblot method of psychological testing, developed a decade later.
However, Kandinsky’s interest in the psychological and psychical matters, along with the very title of his primary work, Concerning the Spiritual in Art, points to another significant influence: Theosophy. This spiritual and philosophical movement sought to explore the hidden truths of existence, aligning closely with Kandinsky’s artistic quest to transcend the materiality of his works. Although he was not a convinced Theosophist, Kandinsky was drawn by its claim to universality, syncretic nature, and core ideas of clairvoyance and consciousness hierarchy. He was familiar with Theosophical founder Helena Blavatsky—keeping her Secret Doctrine in his Munich library—as well as Annie Besant and Charles Leadbeater’s mystical Thought-Forms, published in 1905. The latter work, which proposed that emotions could project colored forms, resonated with Kandinsky’s belief that the physical world was intertwined with unseen realms. As Besant and Leadbeater explained, the “physicist . . . finds himself bewildered by touches and gleams from another realm which interpenetrates his own, he finds himself compelled to speculate on invisible presences.”¹⁷
Kandinsky’s frequent use of words such as “spirit” and “soul” in his writings echoes Theosophical ideas.¹⁸ There are also clear Theosophical analogies in his paintings, such as the bizarre floating form in Woman in Moscow of 1912 (fig. 8), which resembles the “thought- form” that Besant and Leadbeater attributed to the feeling of “vague pure affection” (fig. 9). According to them, this “cloud of pure affection . . . represents a very positive feeling. The person from whom it emanates is happy and in harmony with the world.”¹⁹ These loose Theosophical symbols reappear more geometrically in later works such as Light in Heavy (cat. 27) and Arrow Toward the Circle (cat. 38). Together, these influences suggest that Kandinsky’s study of geometry was not only a visual exploration but also an intricate synthesis of scientific inquiry and meta physical thought.
BRIDGING THE SENSES
Embedded within
Concerning the Spiritual in Art is a reference to Aleksandra Vasilevna
Zakharina- Unkovskaia, a Theosophist, violinist, and schoolteacher, who, as
Kandinsky noted, carried out “successful experiments . . . with
unmusical children—to encourage them to memorize a melody with the help of
color or, at least, of colors.”²⁰ Her ideas on synesthesia and the
interrelationship between different sensory modalities—specifically between
sound and color—resonated with Kandinsky’s own theories. Kandinsky elaborated
that “A. Zakharina-Unkovskaia has worked for many years on this project
and has constructed a special, precise method of ‘notating music from the
colors of nature and of painting from the sounds of nature, to see sound in color
terms and to hear colors in musical terms.’”²¹
A champion of Theosophy,
Unkovskaia taught art and music as a single subject to children, believing that
nature was the receptacle of synesthesia. To this end, she composed music to
represent natural phenomena such as the shimmering surface of a lake, the stars
shining, or clouds billowing, as in her score Mysterious Painting. She also
designed charts to measure the ebb and flow of colors as music progressed, a
kind of coordinational color organ,²² and contributed a version of her treatise
“Method of Color-Sound-Number” for the 1908 St. Peters burg exhibition Art
in the Life of the Child.²³ Unkovskaia was excited by Kandinsky’s theory and
practice, referring to his prints as “pure music” and hoping to share her exercises
in sound, color, and number with him.²⁴
Unkovskaia lectured
widely and in 1908 even visited author Lev Tolstoi to discuss her ideas,
subsequently sending him an offprint of her “Method of Color-Sound-Number” from
the journal Vestnik teosofii (Herald of Theosophy).²⁵ The following year she
contributed to the fifth International Theosophical Congress in Budapest
with an exposition of her “Method of Color-Sound-Number” and a concerto on her
Guarneri violin.²⁶ According to various sources, Kandinsky attended the
Budapest convention, where he would have made the acquaintance of Unkovskaia,
listened to her lectures and violin recital,²⁷ and learned of her
identification of colors, sounds, and numbers, according to which red is equal
to do and one, orange to re and two, yellow to mi and three, and so on.²⁸
Like Kandinsky,
Unkovskaia believed in a second geometry that runs parallel to the visible,
physical world: “Contemplation of geometric forms assists in the development of
a serenity, while the reproduction of forms in nature and the expression of
beautiful thoughts via versification in speech and song awakens a joyous
feeling of beauty in the pupil.”²⁹ Unkovskaia also spoke of the “inner content
behind external forms,”³⁰ a concept reminding us of Kandinsky’s frequent
references to the “inner necessity” or “inner sound” within a work of art.
BLURRING BOUNDARIES
In this role at the
Russian Academy of Artistic Sciences (RAKhN), Kandinsky grappled with the
rigidness of traditional science, especially the division between organic and
inorganic matter—a dichotomy mirroring the one between geometric and visionary
abstractions. Kandinsky’s oeuvre suggests that, for him, there was no
opposition between these two forms of representation: one was spiritual, highly
emotional, and transcendent, while the other was rational, materialistic, and
immanent, yet they could be combined and transition into one another.
Even as Kandinsky left
Moscow in December 1921 to join the Bauhaus, where he connected with more
“rational” abstractionists such as Josef Albers (cats. 28–32), he never
abandoned his inner vision. Biomorphic forms continued to dominate his ink
drawings, watercolors, and oils, resembling small protoplasmic and organic
beings. These forms share space with flying enigmatic “chessboards” and
geometric shapes, as seen in his 1922 painting White Cross (cat. 3). The
chessboard motifs in his Bauhaus works, however, were not without precedent.
His 1920 painting Composition No. 224 (On White 1), from his last years
in Moscow, is characterized by energetic motion and free handling of geometric
and curved shapes, where a checkered pattern decomposes as it stretches across
the composition (fig. 10).
This synthesis of
spiritual and geometric abstraction, where organic forms and structured
patterns coexist, underscores Kandinsky’s lifelong pursuit to blur the lines
between the material and the mystical, the organic and inorganic—a
pursuit that found a parallel in the lectures on crystal research at RAKhN.
CRYSTALLOGRAPHERS
In 1921 Kandinsky invited
professional scientists to collaborate with him at RAKhN. In his paper “On a
Method for Working with Synthetic Art,” written in March 1921, he determined
the types of scientists and artists who should be invited. Giving precedence to
biologists, Kandinsky continued, “Specialists in mechanics should be added to
mathematicians, while inviting crystallographers on the one hand, and engineers
on the other, is of particular importance . . . crystallographers are
concerned exclusively with the laws of nature which create phenomena very close
to works of art.”³¹
Kandinsky’s belief that
biological sciences could offer models for understanding human creativity,
shares much in common with the ideas of Russian philosopher Semen Frank. His
lecture “The Role of Art in the Positive Sciences,” delivered at RAKhN on
August 30, 1921, compared evolutionism with abstract art.³² He suggested that,
just as a biologist could conceptualize new beings within the evolutionary
chain, an artist could envision new forms “at the frontier” of reality.³³ Frank
concluded that contemporary art could reveal many unex plored aspects of
reality, just as the pioneering work of mathematicians Bernhard Riemann and
Nikolai Lobachevsky, which challenged the long-standing dominance of Euclidean
geometry, opened up new ways of thinking about space.³⁴
Among the scientists
invited to be one of four members of the first working commission of
Kandinsky’s Physico-Psychological Department was physicist and crystallographer
Nikolai Uspensky. His research focused on X-raying crystals, a topic he had
begun research ing in Munich in 1912, where Kandinsky may have already met him.
Uspensky collaborated closely with physicist Georg Wulff, who was examining
crystal structures at the Commercial Institute in Moscow. Building on their
individual research they developed a research program focused on X-ray
diffraction in crystals. As early as the spring of 1907, Wulff had presented a
lecture series at the Polytechnic Museum in Moscow, offering a scientific
analysis of symmetry in nature: covering examples from animal, vegetable, and
mineral kingdoms. He discussed how symmetry governed the internal structure of
both animate and inanimate matter. Later, Wulff studied the growth of crystals
and traced an analogy between the various forms of growth in animals and
plants, insisting in 1915 that the “ideas of a similarity between crystals and
organisms are very attractive, because they instill hope that we might discover
the secret bridge spanning the two fields of the inorganic and the organic
worlds.”³⁵ He expanded on this subject in his lecture “Rhythm in the Creations
of Nature” at RAKhN on April 4, 1922.
The collaboration between
scientists and artists at RAKhN was part of a broader twentieth-century
enthusiasm for merging scientific inquiry with artistic creation. Russian
avant-garde painter Pavel Filonov developed a unique theoretical and artistic
approach known as Analytical Realism. This involved a deconstruction of form
and structure, resulting in works that resemble complex crystalline
compositions. Filonov regarded each of his works as a “formula of life,” by
which he meant that his paintings were not representations of the visible
world, but a coded representation of the dynamics of life, growth, and trans-
formation. The crystal, a model for inanimate matter, often served as a mental
image or code. For example, in his Formula of the Universe from 1920–22 (fig.
14) he painted a trans- parent, rotating crystal beneath an arch at the center
of the composition, a representation similar to the graphic illustrations of
crystals (fig. 12) published in popular journals such as Priroda (Nature).
The scientific revolution
at the threshold of the twentieth century included the advanced application of
modern instruments such as the microscope, various electrical apparatuses, and
X-rays. Avant-garde artists were fascinated by such inventions, inserting them
into their artworks as seen in Marcel Duchamp’s Chocolate Grinder (1913,
Philadelphia Museum of Art) or Ivan Kliun’s Ozonator (1914, Russian Museum,
St. Petersburg). The artists, like their scientific colleagues, were aware
of the epistemological implications of their own discoveries. They advanced a
common philosophical query: wherein lies the boundary between the organic and
the inorganic?
THE CEREBRAL AND THE
SENSUAL
Kandinsky never erred
from his conviction that the cerebral must yield to the tactile, the calculated
to the spontaneous and sensual. In one of his conclusive essays, “Line and
Fish” from 1935, Kandinsky, perhaps meditating upon his long career, observed:
Approaching it in one way
I see no essential difference
between a line one calls
“abstract” and a fish. . . .
This isolated line and
the isolated fish alike are living
beings with forces
peculiar to them, though latent. . . .
Because each being has an
impressive “look” which mani
fests itself by its
expression. . . .
But approaching it
in another way there is an essential
difference between a line
and a fish.
And that is that the fish
can swim, eat and be eaten. It has
then capacities of which
the line is deprived.
These capacities of the
fish are necessary extras for the
fish itself and for
the kitchen, but not for painting. . . .
That is why I like the
line better than the fish—at least, in
my painting.³⁶
1- The spiritual, the
occult, and the “Other” in modern Western art has been the subject of numerous
publications, although particular mention should be made of the following two
sources: Los Angeles 1986 and Frankfurt am Main 1995.
2- Kandinsky 1977.
3- For a detailed
textological discussion of the several versions of “Concerning the Spiritual in
Art,” see Nadezhda Podzemskaia, V. Kandinskii o dukhovnom v iskusstve: Pol’noe
kriticheskoe izdanie [W. Kandinsky on the Spiritual in Art: Complete
Critical Edition], Moscow 2020, 2 vols.
4- Quoted in the Russian
text of Wassily Kandinsky’s lecture, “O dukhovnom v iskusstve (Zhivopis’)” [On
the Spiritual in Art (Painting)], in Trudy Vserossiiskogo s’ezda khudozhnikov
[Proceedings of the All-Russian Congress of Artists], ed. Il’ia Repin et al.,
Petrograd 1914, 3 vols., here 1, 47–76. The lecture is republished in
Natal’ia Avtonomova et al., eds., V. V. Kandinskii: Izbrannye Trudy [Selected
Works], Moscow 2001, 2 vols., here vol. 1, 96–156. Further translations here
are from this reprint, including this quotation on 115.
5- Kazimir Malevich,
Suprematizm: 34 risunka [Suprematism: 34 Drawings] (1919), Vitebsk 1920.
6- Magdalena Moeller,
“Kandinsky a Monaco: Avvio all’astrazione,” in Rome 2000, 25–26.
7- Kandinsky 2024, 104.
8- Vasilii Kandinskii, “K
voprosu o forme” [On the Problem of Form] (1913), in Avtonomova 2001 (see
note 4), vol. 1, 210–34, here 210.
9- Kandinskii 2001 (see
note 4), 100.
10- Vasilii Kandinskii,
“Tochka i liniia na ploskosti: K analizu zhivopisnykh elementov” [Point and
Line to Plane: Toward an Analysis of the Painterly Elements], in Avtonomova
2001 (see note 4), vol. 2, 96–156, here 99.
11- Kandinskii 2001 (see
note 4), 110; Fedor Rybakov, “Predislovie” [Preface], in Atlas dlia
eksperimen tal’no-psikhologicheskogo issledovaniia lichnosti [Atlas for
Experimental Psychological Research on Personality], Moscow 1910, unpaginated.
12- See Fedor Rybakov,
Sovremennye pisateli i bol’nye nervy: Psikhiatricheskii etiud [Modern Writers
and Sick Nerves: A Psychiatric Study], Moscow 1908; Petr Gannushkin, Vliianie
kul’tury i tsivilizatsii na dushevnye zabolevaniia [The Influence of Culture
and Civilization on Psychic Illnesses], Moscow 1914.
13- See Misler 2002,
173–85.
14- Sergei Kotliarevskii,
“Improvizatsiia kak raskrytie bessoznatel’nogo: Znachenie bessoznatel’nogo v
sovremennoi nauke i filosofii s gipnozom i snovideniem [Improvisation as
Disclosure of the Subconscious: The Meaning of the Subconscious in Modern
Scholarship and Philosophy with Hypnosis and Dreams]: Tezis [Thesis],”
typescript, RGALI (Russian State Archive of Literature and Art, Moscow), call
no. f. 941, op. 1, ed. khr. 3, l. 23.
15- For information on
the role of Sidorov and his colleagues at RAKhN, especially in the fields of
psychology and dance, see Irina Sirotkina, “Nauka o tantse: Khoreologiia
Alekseia Sidorova” [The Science of Dance: The Choreology of Aleksei Sidorov],
in Mezhdunarodnyi zhurnal issledovanii kul’tury [International Journal of
Cultural Research], 4 (2022), unpaginated.
16- See Fedor Rybakov,
“Sovremennaia intelligentsia i ‘ozverenie’ nravov” [Modern Intelligentsia and
the Bestiality of Morals], in Rybakov et al., Kuda my idem? Nastoiashchee i
budushchee russkoi intellgentsii, literatury, teatra i iskusstv: Sbornik statei
i otvetov [Whither Are We Going? The Present and Future of Russian
Intelligentsia, Literature, Theater, and the Arts: A Collection of Articles and
Answers], Moscow 1910; and Vasilii Kandinskii, “Kuda idet ‘novoe’ iskusstvo?”
[Whither the “New” Art?], in Odesskie novosti [Odesa News] (February 9, 1911),
2.
17- Besant/Leadbeater
1905, 12.
18- See, for example, the
contributions from Ivan Aksenov and Aleksandra Unkovskaia to the rubric
entitled “Otdel dukhovnykh iskanii” [Division of Spiritual Quests], in Vestnik
teosofii 1 (1909), 91–95 and 2 (1909), 98–101; also see Aleksandra Unkovskaia,
“i v dushe svoei razlivaetsia bol” [pain spilled into his soul], in Unkovskaia,
“Son starogo skripacha” [Dream of an Old Violinist], in Vestnik teosofii 12
(1908), 41–45, here 42; or “samoe nachalo zhizni dushi . . . eto osnovnaia nota
[kotoraia] nemedlenno sozdaet otzvuki” [the beginning of the soul is like the
keynote which creates an infinite number of resonances], in Unkovskaia, “Metoda
tsveto- zvuko-chisel” [Method of Color- Sound-Number], in Vestnik teosofii 1
(1909), 77–82, here 79.
19- Besant/Leadbeater
1905, 40.
20- Although recognized
as an accomplished violinist and impor- tant Theosophist in her day,
Unkovskaia—and her connection with Kandinsky—have not been the subject of
extensive critical investigation. For some commentary on her
“color-sound-number” theory and the manifest relevance to Kandinsky see, for
example, Nadezhda Kargapolova, “Muzyka i rannie sinteticheskie zamysly V.
Kandinskogo” [Music and Early Synthetic Concepts by W. Kandinsky], in
Izvestiia Ural’skogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta [Bulletin of the State Ural
University] 35, 2005, 114–19; and Irina Vanechkina and Bulat Galeev,
“Kandinskii i Skriabin” [Kandinsky and Scriabin], in Mnogogrannyi mir
Kandinskogo [The Multifarious World of Kandinsky], ed. Natal’ia Avtonomova et
al., Moscow 1998; also see Lindsey Macchiarella, “Skryabin’s Prefatory Action
and Mysterium: Libretto, Sketches, and Divine Unity,” PhD diss., Florida State
University, Tallahassee 2016.
21- Kandinskii 2001 (see
note 4), 151.
22- Nadezhda Kargapolova,
Muzykal’nye idei v teoreticheskom i khudozhestvennom nasledii Kandinskogo [Musical
Ideas in Kandinsky’s Theorical and Artistic Legacy], dissertation, Altai State
University, Barnaul 2003.
23- Iskusstvo v zhizni
rebenka [Art in the Life of the Child], exh. cat., St. Petersburg 1908,
23. Other contributors included toymaker Nikolai Bartram and sculptor and
Theosophist Vasilii Vatagin; see the exhibition reviews in Knizhnyi vestnik
[Book Herald] 18–19 (1908), 136; and Aleksandr Benua (Benois), “Vystavka
‘Iskusstvo v zhizni rebenka’” [“Art in the Life of the Child” Exhibition], in Rech’
[Speech] 289 (November 28, 1909).
24 Kargapolova 2003 (see
note 22).
25- The copy containing
Unkovskaia’s dedication to “Dear Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoi” is in the Library of
the “Iasnaia Poliana” Lev Tolstoi Museum and Estate, inventory no. KP (GIK):
MZYaP KP-1807/429. Unkovskaia first published her essay “Metoda tsveto-zvuko-
chisel” [Method of Color-Sound- Number] in 1909 (see note 18). The essay
was published as a booklet in Petrograd in 1916 and was also widely circulated
as a separate offprint, sometimes with a slightly different title such as
“Metoda tsveto-zvuko-chislo.”
26- See the report in
Kaluzhskii kur’er [Kaluga Courier] 59 (June 2, 1909), 2–3.
27- See, for example,
Maria Carlson, No Religion Higher Than Truth: A History of the Theosophical Movement
in Russia, 1875–1922, Princeton 1993, 187.
28- Unkovskaia 1909 (see
note 18), 80.
29- Unkovskaia 1916 (see
note 25), 7.
30- Unkovskaia 1909 (see
note 18), 78.
31- Vasilii Kandinsky,
“On a Method for Working with Synthetic Art” (1921), in Experiment 8,1 (January
2002), 187–92.
32- Semen Frank, “Rol’
iskusstva v pozitivnykh naukakh,” lecture delivered at the presidium of the
Scientific-Artistic Commission at RAKhN on August 30, 1921. Typescript in the
collection of the Wassily Kandinsky Papers 1911–1940 at the Getty Research
Center, Los Angeles, call no. 86/A32850/910/OCLC/805/ Record No. 009775, 6.
33- Ibid.
34- Ibid.
35- Georgii Vul’f, “Kak
rastut kristally” [How Crystals Grow], in Priroda [Nature] (September 1915),
1107–08. See also Georgii Vul’f, “Est’ li chto-libo obshchee u kristallov i
rastenii?” [Do Crystals and Plants Have Anything in Common?], in Priroda
(January 1912), 45–46.
36- Wassily Kandinsky,
“Line and Fish,” in Axis 2 (1935), 6 (italics in the original).
I quoted essay of
‘’Kandinsky’s Synthesis: Bridging Art, Science, and Spirituality by John E.
Bowlt and Nicoletta Misler’’ from exhibition book of ‘’Kandinsky’s
Universe: Geometric Abstraction in the 20th Century Edited by Ortrud
Westheider, Michael Philipp, and Nerina Santorius ‘’
You may click below link
to buy from Museum Barberini shop to read below essays from book.
ESSAYS
• Kandinsky’s Synthesis:
Bridging Art, Science, and Spirituality (John E. Bowlt and Nicoletta Misler)
• Circles of Exchange:
Geometric Abstraction and the East-Central European Avant-Garde, 1920–1930
(Maria Mileeva)
• Rhythms of the City:
The Influence of the Metropolis on Piet Mondrian’s Geometric Abstraction
(Sterre Barentsen)
• An Art Without
Content? Hard Edge Painting, 1958–1968 (Jeremy Lewison) Catalog of Exhibited
Works
• Spirit and Technology:
Geometry in Abstract Art (Max Boersma)
• Universal Language of
Abstraction: Bauhaus and Concrete Artists (Max Boersma)
• Straight Lines, Flowing
Forms: International Abstraction in Paris (Sterre Barentsen)
• Balanced Forces:
Constructivist Utopias in British Art (Altair Brandon Salmon)
• The Essence of Form:
Hard Edge Painting and Minimalism (David Max Horowitz)
• Space Age: Op Art in
the Sixties (Sterre Barentsen)
https://barberini-shop.de/en/current-exhibition/6129/kandinsky-s-universe.-catalogue.-english?c=946
.png)
