Wednesday 4 April 2012

Wassily Kandinsky: Black Spot 1 (1912)


There still seems to be elements of landscape here, though this is an abstract composition. The title refers to a formal element within the painting and not what the painting may represent, indicating the prime importance of form and structure here. The use of line is bold and, in some ways, is reminiscent of some earlier Fauve painters, but here the colour is not strictly contained by line and is also set free entirely from line. The relationship between line and colour becomes one of balance and interplay. The result is a dynamic composition that bypasses rational meaning, becoming directly expressive in a similar way to music. Kandinsky often avoided using titles that gave a clue to the meaning of a picture in order to ‘side-step’ the rational mind that is eager to categorise and dismiss. If the intellectual faculty was momentarily confounded, then this allowed the spiritual, or subconscious, faculty to engage with the work…

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Image of this painting at Olga's abc Gallery Kandinsky Pages

Click image above for more info or to buy the book of collected writings by the artist

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