Rethinking Kandinsky

Visiting Centre Pompidou [0] in Paris was the first time i GOT modern art.

A big part of that was that it was organized not strictly chronologically but evolutionarily - and I could watch how art evolved from Impressionism (which i also only got a few years earlier by seeing in person) to "modern art" - which at this point is a term referring to styles 100 years old.

A HUGE part of my newfound appreciation for the Genre was Kandinsky. The way he used patterns and shapes made a profound impact on me.

I know a lot of left-brained pragmatic software types that scoff at this genre of art - dismissing it as something a toddler could do just as well. I wish my experience on everyone - that's where I started, and by the end of my day at Pompidou I stood for almost 15 minutes in front of a giant blue square [1] saying "Holy shit, I GET it." No hallucinogens participated in this journey.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centre_Pompidou

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Klein_Blue

I agree with the premise of the article, that some of Kandinsky's work is not readily "decoded".

But at the Guggenheim exhibition, I found that to be an appealing element, rather than a problem.

In the more "decodable" work, like Several Circles, you can mentally set aside large areas of the painting because the structure is predictable from those parts you've already looked at. In a way, much of the painting can be abstracted in the mind during the visual experience.

But in the more "heiroglyphic" paintings, the eye doesn't get to settle. New details emerge each time you adjust your gaze.

Allegedly, Kandinsky took visual inspiration from diagrams in medical and biology books. What better example of mind-bending complexity than our own biology.

Kandinsky is absolutely incredible and surprisingly accessible.

All you need to do is spend 10-15-30 minutes in front of his painting, assuming that you are in a dialogue with an extraordinarily smart person on the subject of motion, 3D and compression of time and space onto a canvas. Once you give the artist a credit to interact with you from a point of mutual understanding, you begin to understand why that particular ship on Kandinsky’s painting is skewed, or what do the parallel lines mean.

Kandinsky also wrote a theoretical book, “Dot and line on a plane” (not sure what the exact English name is), which provides a structured insight into his approach to painting.

He is probably my favorite artist to just encounter in a museum.

It is also fitting to mention that Kandinsky very likely has synesthesia, where he could hear/taste/etc colors and shapes.

Kandinksy’s works looks the way they do partly due to the “sound” or other qualities —- that most (all?) viewers cannot understand —- that the images triggered in his brain.

I lectured on 20th century art for years and in terms of accessibility I always liked to point out that there was a pretty undeniable historical overlap between the (re)emergence of abstraction and the appropriation of preindustrial (most notably African) abstracted art mixed with the later discovery of largely abstracted pre-agricultural / prehistoric cave paintings in Europe which I always made the case had at least the possibility of a universal accessibility because they predated evidence of organized language (although I always thought that smelled a little undisprovable).

Anyway as an art-teacher-turned-dev I always like to see Hyperallergic articles pop up here but I think its worth beating the dead horse of celebrity spectaclization on this and most of their prominent articles in spite of their undeniably good work. For my money they're still the best current arts publication out there.

Soapboxing a bit but Kandinsky always makes me think about the notion that art has the power to democratize civilization and empower individuals when individuals feel empowered to create art without subjugating themselves to specters of the 19th and 20th century celebrity artists. Kandinsky was a great artist, but so are the dozens of unrecognized art students that I worked with every semester for the better part of a decade. And even though I personally love Kandinsky he can also be cast as a wealthy dilettante that used his familial privilege to buy his way into a historical narrative that was propped up on a globally destructive inter-European colonial economy. The great thing about his work within that historical narrative (imho) is that it proclaims "all humans are ennobled by the inalienable creative force" not the 21st century museum gift-shop narrative of "gosh artists in the 20th century sure were the best so buy a Magritte themed skateboard deck and a Francis Bacon coffee mug".

Rant over but seriously good art is all around us, especially in our own minds and hands as individual conscious entities. No hate, hyperallergic and Kandinsky are legit forever. Merry christmas.

> [kandinsky bourgeois context] https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.theartstory.org/amp/artist/...

> [african art appropriation] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picasso%27s_African_Period

> [abstract cave painting symbols context] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hJnEQCMA5Sg

I love Kadinsky's Composition no 8. I think his works would make great tattoos.