By Kristin FioreSummer Bruin Staff
Much of what is innovative, emotive, or just plain bewildering in 20th century art can be blamed on Wassily Kandinsky. One of the first true abstract artists, Kandinsky expressed himself through pure form and color, recreating a mood instead of a scene.
Six of his seven existing "Compositions" are being shown together for the first time at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art through Sept. 3. The exhibit includes preliminary sketches for the "Compositions" as well as earlier paintings, lithographs and woodcuts, all of which help clarify his artistic goals and his journey toward abstraction.
The Russian-born painter continually defied artistic traditions and formed revolutionary artists' groups like the anti-elitist Phalynx or "Der Blaue Reiter," the famous German expressionist group that called for spiritual awakening. His early works conveyed this rebellious spirit through more traditional and realistic means, such as the poster for the Phalynx group's first exhibition.
The poster shows infantry armed with swords and shields preparing to attack a distant white castle, a reference to the artists' attack on the stilted art world. Though the theme and highly-stylized figures in the work anticipate Kandinsky's later, more radical art, the poster still relies on the use of real objects to get its point across.
It wasn't until Kandinsky returned to his studio one evening that he realized the power of abstract art. He came across the most beautiful painting he'd ever seen, overflowing with vibrant colors and shapes, only to find it was one of his own paintings turned on its side. Without concrete objects to distract the eye, the intensity of the shapes and colors came through.
From that point on Kandinsky used forms and colors to express himself, likening abstraction to music in its ability to conjure emotion without limitations or subjects. His "Compositions" are the pinnacle of this mode of expression, and are considered by both critics and Kandinsky himself to be his most important works. They are not only grand in scale and limited in number, but compile many styles and years of reflection.
Numerous studies and sketches made in preparation for the "Compositions" are exhibited next to the final product and show Kandinsky's otherwise inscrutable train of thought. They reveal that many of the images he painted began as somewhat concrete objects but mutate into abstractions as the work progresses.
Some also show the colors Kandinsky planned to use, as colors were the focus of his early abstract works. Tours are also available to provide insight into his paintings and the events in his life that inspired them.
The first three "Compositions" were destroyed in World War II and only exist as black and white copies. Together with the more figurative sketches, they reveal the motif of horse and rider - from Russian folklore and apocalyptic Bible verses - and the ideal unification of the spiritual and material worlds.
Kandinsky believed a revolution was necessary to achieve this unity, as the titles of his later "Compositions" reveal. The fifth and sixth works are referred to as "The Resurrection" and "The Deluge," and another is unofficially titled "The Last Judgment." These works are much more dynamic and chaotic than the first three "Compositions," with diagonals and more shades of color than Crayola could imagine.
The sixth and seventh pieces are known as Kandinsky's best works, and rightfully so. Monumental in size and exquisitely arranged in cascades of color and motion, these works fulfill the promise of Kandinsky's prior paintings.
"The Deluge," the sixth "Composition," is a cataclysmic scene of tossed boats, fish, bits of human shapes, and heavy sheets of rain all being swallowed by an angry roar of ocean waves. Early studies show the boats and human figures that in the painting are barely oars and hands, tracing the painting's evolution into its final state of disaster and disarray.
The seventh "Composition," the largest and most complicated, combines elements of all of the previous ones - boats, peaceful reclining lovers, angels, apocalyptic horns, falling towers and horsemen - into one explosive canvas. Painted in 1913, this passionate and angry work was triggered in part by the onset of World War I.
Kandinsky moved from Germany to his native Russia for the duration of the war, and did not paint the following "Composition" until 1923. Its serenity, organized shapes, circles with haloes, lines and neatly-drawn triangles are those of the calm after the storm. The falling towers of the fifth and seventh "Compositions" have been replaced with massive blue mountains (triangles), symbolizing the spirit to Kandinsky.
His final "Compositions" were painted in Paris near the end of his life, and are filled with allusions to birth and death. The ninth is done in childlike soft pastels with embryonic shapes floating about. In contrast, the final "Composition" throws bright shapes against an endless black sky, the color Kandinsky associated with death or a musical pause.
He often described his paintings in musical terms, and sought to recreate pure sound's formless tides of emotion, as an early work entitled "Verses Without Words" suggests. His art could be described as forms without objects, painting without limits.
Though Kandinsky's art is abstract and less accessible to most than a Renoir or a Michelangelo, the sketches, information and tours that accompany it help clarify it and translate its power to the viewer.
ART: Wassily Kandinsky's "Compositions" at LACMA. Through Sept. 3. TIX: $6 adults, $4 students and seniors. For more info call (213) 857-6000.
More than meets the eye
Wassily Kandinsky's 'Compositions' capture reclining lovers, stormy seas and crumbling towers in explosive colors and shapes. But the trick is, with this artist, things are never what they seem.