Oil Painting, a Fundamental Technique
Discover how Kandinsky adapted his favorite medium to his artistic evolution
Tubes and commercial colours by Kandinsky, VassilyCentre Pompidou
In his work Looking back on the Past, Kandinsky speaks with love and admiration of his first box of oil paints, in organic terms:
Portrait of Vassily Kandinsky as a youth Portrait of Vassily Kandinsky as a youth (c. 1885) by Dimo, V.Centre Pompidou
"With money slowly saved up, when I was 13 or 14 years old, I bought myself a box of oil paints. What I felt then, or, to put it better, the experience I had seeing the color come out of the tube, I still feel that today.
Study for Schwarz und Weiss, first painting (1909) by Kandinsky, VassilyCentre Pompidou
A press of the finger and … these foreign beings we call colors emerged one after the other, living in and for themselves, autonomous, and endowed with the qualities needed for their future autonomous life, and, at all times, ready to yield freely to new combinations, mix with one another, and create an infinity of new worlds.
Some rest there, their strength already depleted, weakened, solidified, dead, living memories of past possibilities, unwanted by the future. Like in a fight, like in a battle, they exit the tube, these new, young forces, replacing the old ones.
The middle of the palette is a strange world, the remnants of colors already used, which, far from this source, wander in the incarnations called for by the canvases.
There is a world there that came into existence at the painter's will, for the pictures already painted, but that was also determined and created by accidental causes, by the mysterious games at play in forces unknown to the artist.
And I owe a lot to them, to these coincidences: they taught me a lot more than any teacher or any master."
Shelf with pigments in the studio of Vassily Kandinsky in Neuilly-sur-Seine by AnonymousCentre Pompidou
This painting equipment accompanied Kandinsky during different stages of his life until he reached his studio in Neuilly.
Herbst in Bayern (Autumn in Bavaria) (1908) by Kandinsky, VassilyCentre Pompidou
During the years he spent studying in Munich as well as during his nomadic years with Gabriele Münter in Europe, he made a significant number of small oil studies from life, done in the open air using a palette knife and palette.
Before the war, his abstract language developed through large formats in oil.
Im Grau (In the Grey) (1919) by Kandinsky, VassilyCentre Pompidou
After his forced return to Moscow, Kandinsky stopped painting. In 1919, after focusing on various graphic practices, Kandinsky masterfully took up painting again and returned to large formats with In Gray.
In this picture, what strikes you straight away is the clay-colored background, a surface on which a wide array of elements stands out.
The color, muted by the gray, comes together with the non-color: the clash between the red and the blue is balanced against the relationships between white and black.
Hilla von Rebay painting in her studio in Redding Hilla von Rebay painting in her studio in Redding (c. 1935) by AnonymousCentre Pompidou
"In Gray marks the end of my dramatic period, a period during which I've accumulated so many forms," the artist wrote in 1936 to his American producer Hilla Rebay.
Etude pour Im Grau (Study for In the Grey) (1919) by Kandinsky, VassilyCentre Pompidou
Unlike most of the large canvases of Moscow, Kandinsky took this pivotal work, which announced the development of a new language based on geometry, away with him.
Study for Auf Weiss II (1922-12-22) by Kandinsky, VassilyCentre Pompidou
Working at the Bauhaus in Weimar from 1922 to 1925, the artist's painting became particularly geometric.
Gelb-Rot-Blau (Yellow-Red-Blue) (1925) by Kandinsky, VassilyCentre Pompidou
From 1925, in Dessau, Kandinsky's painting reconnected with the curved line, and his compositions once again began to include color gradations. Yellow-Red-Blue is the most significant work of this period.
Development in brown (1933) by Kandinsky, VassilyCentre Pompidou
He started to experiment with an airbrush, a color pigment spray, to create effects of transparency like in his last "German" canvas Development in Brown, which he finished in Paris sometime after his arrival.
Sky Blue (1940) by Kandinsky, VassilyCentre Pompidou
Kandinsky painted a few more masterpieces in a new biomorphic, pictorial language until he had to give up large formats in oil due to shortages under the German occupation two years before his death in 1944.
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