Editing Wassily Kandinsky (section)

== Kandinsky's conception of art ==
{{Main|List of paintings by Wassily Kandinsky}}

=== The artist as prophet ===
[[File:Vassily Kandinsky, 1913 - Composition 7.jpg|thumb|''Composition&nbsp;VII'', [[Tretyakov Gallery]]. According to Kandinsky, this is the most complex piece he ever painted (1913).|alt=Large, colourful abstract painting]]
Writing that "music is the ultimate teacher",<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.wassilykandinsky.net/quotes.php|title=Wassily Kandinsky – Quotes|website=www.wassilykandinsky.net|access-date=17 September 2016}}</ref> Kandinsky embarked upon the first seven of his ten ''Compositions''. The first three survive only in black-and-white photographs taken by fellow artist and friend [[Gabriele Münter]]. ''Composition I'' (1910) was destroyed by a British air raid on the city of Braunschweig in Lower Saxony on the night of 14 October 1944.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Lost Art: Wassily Kandinsky|url=https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/wassily-kandinsky-1382/lost-art-wassily-kandinsky |website=Tate}}</ref>

While studies, sketches, and improvisations exist (particularly of ''Composition II''), a Nazi raid on the Bauhaus in the 1930s resulted in the confiscation of Kandinsky's first three ''Compositions''. They were displayed in the state-sponsored [[Degenerate Art exhibition]] and were then destroyed (along with works by [[Paul Klee]], [[Franz Marc]] and other modern artists).{{Citation needed|date=December 2021}}

Fascinated by [[Christian eschatology]] and the perception of a coming New Age,<ref>{{cite web|last1=Rabinovich|first1=Yakov|title=Kandinsky: Master of the Mystic Arts|url=http://www.invisiblebooks.com/Kandinsky.htm}}</ref> a common theme among Kandinsky's first seven ''Compositions'' is the [[apocalypse]] (the end of the world as we know it). Writing of the "artist as prophet" in his book, ''Concerning the Spiritual in Art'', Kandinsky created paintings in the years immediately preceding World War I showing a coming cataclysm which would alter individual and social reality. Having a devout belief in [[Eastern Orthodox Church|Orthodox Christianity]],<ref>{{cite web|title=The Bauhaus Group: Six Masters of Modernism|url=https://www.college.columbia.edu/cct/winter11/columbia_forum|website=Columbia College Today}}</ref> Kandinsky drew upon the biblical stories of [[Noah's Ark]], [[Jonah]] and the whale, Christ's [[resurrection]], the [[four horsemen of the Apocalypse]] in the [[book of Revelation]], Russian folktales and the common mythological experiences of death and rebirth. Never attempting to picture any one of these stories as a narrative, he used their veiled imagery as symbols of the archetypes of death–rebirth and destruction–creation he felt were imminent in the pre-[[World War I]] world.

As he stated in ''Concerning the Spiritual in Art'' (see below), Kandinsky felt that an authentic artist creating art from "an internal necessity" inhabits the tip of an upward-moving pyramid. This progressing pyramid is penetrating and proceeding into the future. What was odd or inconceivable yesterday is commonplace today; what is ''avant garde'' today (and understood only by the few) is common knowledge tomorrow. The modern artist–prophet stands alone at the apex of the pyramid, making new discoveries and ushering in tomorrow's reality. Kandinsky was aware of recent scientific developments and the advances of modern artists who had contributed to radically new ways of seeing and experiencing the world.

''Composition IV'' and later paintings are primarily concerned with evoking a spiritual resonance in viewer and artist. As in his painting of the apocalypse by water (''Composition VI''), Kandinsky puts the viewer in the situation of experiencing these epic myths by translating them into contemporary terms (with a sense of desperation, flurry, urgency, and confusion). This spiritual communion of viewer-painting-artist/prophet may be described within the limits of words and images.

=== Artistic and spiritual theorist ===
[[File:Vassily Kandinsky, 1913 - Composition 6.jpg|thumb|''Composition VI'' (1913)|alt=Rectangular, multicoloured abstract painting]]
As the ''[[Der Blaue Reiter]] Almanac'' essays and theorising with composer [[Arnold Schoenberg]] indicate, Kandinsky also expressed the communion between artist and viewer as being available to both the senses and the mind ([[synesthesia]]). Hearing tones and chords as he painted, Kandinsky theorised that (for example), yellow is the colour of middle [[C (musical note)|C]] on a brassy trumpet; black is the colour of closure, and the end of things; and that combinations of colours produce vibrational frequencies, akin to chords played on a piano. In 1871 the young Kandinsky learned to play the piano and cello.<ref>François Le Targat, ''Kandinsky'', Twentieth Century masters series, Random House Incorporated, 1987, p. 7, {{ISBN|0847808106}}</ref><ref>Susan B. Hirschfeld, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Hilla von Rebay Foundation, ''Watercolours by Kandinsky at the Guggenheim Museum: a selection from the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the Hilla von Rebay Foundation'', 1991.</ref>

Kandinsky also developed a theory of geometric figures and their relationships, claiming (for example) that the circle is the most peaceful shape and represents the human soul.{{failed verification|date=April 2021}} These theories are explained in ''Point and Line to Plane''.

Kandinsky's legendary stage design for a performance of [[Modest Mussorgsky|Mussorgsky]]'s ''[[Pictures at an Exhibition]]'' illustrates his synesthetic concept of a universal correspondence of forms, colors and musical sounds.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Bauhaus|last=Fiedler|first=Jeannine|publisher=h.f.ullmann publishing GmbH|year=2013|isbn=978-3-8480-0275-7|location=Germany|page=262}}</ref> In 1928, the stage production premiered at a theater in Dessau. In 2015, the original designs of the stage elements were animated with modern video technology and synchronized with the music according to the preparatory notes of Kandinsky and the director's script of Felix Klee.

In another episode with Münter during the Bavarian [[abstract expressionist]] years, Kandinsky was working on ''Composition VI''. From nearly six months of study and preparation, he had intended the work to evoke a flood, baptism, destruction, and rebirth simultaneously. After outlining the work on a mural-sized wood panel, he became blocked and could not go on. Münter told him that he was trapped in his intellect and not reaching the true subject of the picture. She suggested he simply repeat the word ''uberflut'' ("deluge" or "flood") and focus on its sound rather than its meaning. Repeating this word like a mantra, Kandinsky painted and completed the monumental work in a three-day span.<ref>{{Cite web|last=|date=13 June 2012|title=Kandinsky: The Path to Abstraction, room guide, room 6|url=https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/kandinsky-path-abstraction/kandinsky-path-abstraction-room-guide-5|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130226042555/http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/kandinsky-path-abstraction/kandinsky-path-abstraction-room-guide-5|archive-date=26 February 2013|access-date=10 August 2021|website=[[Tate]]|language=en-GB|quote=Kandinsky made more studies for this composition than for any other – over thirty drawings, watercolours and sketches. However, according to Gabriele Münter, the final version was painted in just three days.}}</ref>{{citation needed|reason=Should it be "überflut"?|date=October 2011}}