Vasily Kandinsky
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There is some controversy over who made the first non-objective painting and Vasily Kandinsky is sometimes given credit for the accomplishment. Though this is certainly not true it does seem fitting since Kandinsky certainly was the first artist to make non-objectivity "the very foundation of his pictorial imagery." Kandinsky also wrote extensively on the theory of abstract painting. His best known treatise, On the Spiritual in Art, became one of the most influential theoretical works of the twentieth century. Generations of abstract painters absorbed his belief in "inner necessity as the only source of art." Although Kandinsky had an enormous influence on the course of painting and was himself a great painter, it still remains difficult to reconcile his theoretical writings with the work he produced. There are two problems in applying the ideas to the art. First, it is not possible to apply his grammar of color and form to Kandinsky's works with any kind of rigor. Kandinsky sometimes contradicted himself when he wrote in these areas and the ideas should, perhaps, be viewed as less prescriptive and more general than they appear to be. The general ideas about form and color do apply to his own works. The second problem is that Kandinsky's ideas about the nature of art, the artist, the spirit and the world relate strongly to his perception of the social and political situation in the world at the time. Tracing the importance of these general ideas in his work re
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sed in art with his reactions to the state of the world. The oppressive conditions resulting from an industrialized, materialist world and the constant threat of terrific wars contributed to Kandinsky's belief in an impending apocalypse. He had "lost faith" in scientific rationalism and "felt that reality could be fully comprehended only by means of creative intuition." In his despair at the present state of the world Kandinsky turned to the occult Theosophist philosophers whose doctrines were reflected in Kandinsky's claim that humanity was only beginning to awaken again after the long rule of materialism. This materialist, rationalist approach to life had reduced artists to the uninspired job of trying to reproduce nature at the expense of their pursuit of the pure and eternally artistic. If artists could return to the expression of internal necessity in their work they would then play a "crucial role" in bringing about the paradise of the twenty-first century that the Theosophists predicted would follow the impending apocalypse -- about which neither they nor Kandinsky had offered many details.
Despite Kandinsky's apocalyptic notions and his complaints about materialist culture, Grohmann believed that Kandinsky's work
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2947
Approximate Pages = 12 (250 words per page)
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