Kandinsky: A Spiritual Experience…

Wassily Kandinsky - Flood Improvisation - 1913, oil on canvas, Lenbachhaus, Munich (click photo for larger image)Russian born painter Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) “sought to convey profound spirituality and the depth of human emotion through a universal visual language of abstract forms and colors that transcended cultural and physical boundaries.”

One of the pioneers of abstraction—Kandinsky wanted to translate music—which he believed to be the purest form of art—into a visual language. He is most closely associated with German Expressionism. The second phase of that movement—Der Blau Reiter (the Blue Rider) was, in fact, named after a painting of the same name by Kandinsky. Other artists associated with the group included Auguste Macke, Gabriele Münter, and Alexei Jawlensky.

Kandinsky most certainly had very high self-esteem. Indeed, he truly saw himself as a “prophet” whose mission was to share the ideal of abstraction with the world, for the betterment of society. He dubbed himself the first abstract artist. However, we now know that his earliest abstract work—after being tested through various methods—was actually created several years later than Kandinsky claimed it had been. In fact, there were a number of other artists creating abstract works at the same time the Kandinsky was working. Nevertheless, he was a brilliant artist and his work did lay the foundation for many of the modern and postmodern movements that would follow—among them Abstract Expressionism.

"Of all the arts, abstract painting is the most difficult. It demands that you know how to draw well, that you have a heightened sensitivity for composition and for colors, and that you be a true poet. This last is essential.” - Wassily Kandinsky

Elizabeth Catlett: An Icon of Expressionism

Elizabeth Catlett - Woman Fixing Her Hair - 1993 - Magogany and opals - 27 x 18 x 13 in. (68.6 x 45.7 x 33 cm) - Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York African-American born sculptor and printmaker Elizabeth Catlett (1915-2012) is best known for the sculptures and prints she produced during the 1960s and 1970s—which are seen as politically charged. Her works often focus on the female experience.

Born and raised in Washington, D.C., Catlett graduated from Howard University in 1935. She later received a master’s degree from the State University of Iowa.  During the 1940s, Catlett taught art at a number of schools and began to exhibit with other African American artists who would go on to equally illustrative careers, including Robert Blackburn, Jacob Lawrence, Hughie Lee-Smith, Norman Lewis, Archibald Motley, and Charles White. She became the “promotion director” for the George Washington Carver School in Harlem. In 1946, she received a Rosenwald Fun Fellowship that allowed her to travel to Mexico, where she studied wood carving and ceramic sculpture at the Escuela de Pintura y Esculture, in Esmeralda. She later moved to Mexico, married, and became a Mexican citizen.

Her work is a mixture of the abstract and the figurative, in the Modernist tradition, with clear influences from African and Mexican artistic traditions, as well. According to the Catlett, the main purpose of her work is to convey social messages rather than pure aesthetics. While not very well known to the general public, her work is heavily studied by art students looking to depict race, gender and class issues.

Woman Fixing Her Hair is a late sculpture that embodies the characteristics of her best work. Its subject, a nude woman caught in the act of her daily toiletry, is familiar and empathetic. Melding human form and furniture into a seamless whole, the artist navigates a line between abstraction and realism, cubism and biomorphism. Her exquisite handling of natural material-the smoothly polished mahogany and luminous opals-conveys the beauty that she sees in her subject matter.” (Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC)

Klimt and the “Golden Phase” — What Goes Around Comes Around!

Gustav Klimt - Der Kuss (The Kiss) - Oil on canvas - 180 x 180 cm - Österreichische Galerie Belvedere, Vienna (click photo for larger image)In 1897, Austrian Symbolist painter Gustav Klimt’s (1862-1918) mature style emerged, and he founded the Vienna Sezession, a group of painters who revolted against academic art in favor of a highly decorative style similar to Art Nouveau. 

Klimt rarely traveled, but trips in 1903 to Venice and Ravenna, both famous for their beautiful mosaics, most likely inspired his gold technique The early Byzantine mosaics of San Vitale clearly made a lasting impression on him, and their influence is reflected in the development of his “golden style.” It was at this time that he began his so-called “Golden-Phase.” The “golden style” is noteworthy for the use of gold and sometimes silver leaf. There is a sense of horror vacui as almost all surfaces are ornately covered, frequently with geometric or floral elements. The figure takes on the quality of an icon and often appears to inhabit multiple environments. One of the most superb examples of Klimt’s “golden style” is his 1907 portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer 1 and The Kiss (1907-8). Klimt's 'Golden Phase' was marked by positive critical reaction and success.

The Kiss was painted at the highpoint of Klimt’s “Golden Phase”, during which period he painted a number of works in a similar gilded style. This work is a perfect square. The canvas depicts a couple embracing, their bodies entwined in elaborate robes decorated in a style influenced by both linear constructs of the contemporary Art Nouveau style, the organic forms of the earlier Arts and Crafts movement, and the influence of mosaics and medieval art. The work is composed of conventional oil paint with applied layers of gold leaf, an aspect that gives it its strikingly modern, yet evocative appearance. The Kiss is widely regarded as a masterpiece of the early modern period. It is a symbol of Vienna Jugendstil--Viennese Art Nouveau--and is considered Klimt's most popular work.

It is perhaps ironic that many Modern artists—in their determination to create something “new”—often returned to the art of the medieval world for inspiration. Their struggle was to break free from standards established during the Italian Renaissance, which had been in place for over four-hundred years. It is not at all uncommon to find many of the characteristics deeply embedded in the artistic traditions of the Byzantine Empire and Middle Ages reapplied and reinvented in Modern Art. “What Goes Around Comes Around”

“The Late” Claude Monet

Claude Monet - Water Lilies - c. 1920 - Oil on canvas - 200 x 425 cm - Museum of Modern Art, New York (click photo for larger image)When one looks at the late work of Claude Monet (1840-1926), it’s impossible not to see the “modernism” of Impressionism. In the past, the highly abstract nature of the work was “blamed” on Monet’s failing eyesight. However, we now recognize that the artist’s vision was never more clear.

Monet didn’t engage in all of the debates going on among artists during that time, about theory, the directions art was taking, and so forth. He remained at Giverny, tending those gardens that were his studio—and painting. He lived and worked in his own world, of his own creation. He undoubtedly heard of the “abstraction” that was emerging in art, but was likely not affected by it. Instead—as he had always done—he followed the directions of his own imagination, his own view of his reality. By so doing, he created some of the most “modern” — most “abstract” images of the twentieth century. The history of art continues to owe Monet a great debt. It is worth noting that the interest of such postmodernists as Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko in the work of the Impressionist master contributed, in part, to the resurrection of Impressionism by art historians. It wasn’t until the late 1940s and early 1950s that a revisitation at last appropriately gave that movement its proper stature in the history of art.

The work featured here is one of the three large water lily paintings by Monet housed in the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York. It shows a pond covered with water lilies, with reflections of clouds overhead.

Hannah Höch: Dealing Early with Feminist Issues

Hannah Höch - Dada Puppen (Dada Dolls) - 1916 - Fabric, yarn, thread, board, and beads - National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (click photo for larger image)German artist, Hannah Höch (1889-1978) was the only woman associated with the Berlin Dada group. She was best known for her provocative photomontage compositions, which explore Weimar-era perceptions of gender and ethnic differences. But Höch was also particularly interested in the representation of women as dolls, mannequins, and puppets—in essence, products for mass consumption. During her Dada period, she constructed and exhibited stuffed dolls that bore exaggerated and abstract features, but were clearly identifiable as female.

In 1920, the Dada group held the First International Dada Fair, which took on the traditional format of an art salon. But the walls of the site were plastered with posters and photomontages. Höch was allowed to participate only after her fellow artist and lover—Raoul Hausmann (also featured on this site)—threatened to withdraw his own work from the exhibition if she was kept out of it.

In the work featured here, these small-scale sculptural works suggest her awareness of Dada ideas more generally from its inception in 1916 in Zurich. She was likely influenced by writer Hugo Ball, the Zurich-based founder of Dada, given Höch's doll costumes' resemblance to the geometric forms of Ball's own costume worn in a seminal Dada performance at the Swiss nightclub Cabaret Voltaire.”

In 1934 Höch was pinpointed as a “cultural Bolshevist” by the Nazis. In order to continue to make art during World War II, she retreated to a cottage in Heiligensee, on the outskirts of Berlin, where she remained incognito until it was safe to resurface.