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| Wassily Kandinsky - Composition-X - 1939 source: wikipaintings.org |
Composition-X, the painting, is Wassily Kandinsky's Composition-X (10), which is preceded by Composition-IX (9). Does Kandinsky's Composition-X remind you of New Year's Eve party favors? Does it stimulate an upbeat, improvisational jazz feeling? Let's discuss this painting in the post dedicated to our namesake below.
Wassily Kandinsky
I argue that Post-Modernism in Art begins at the moment that Wassily Kandinsky penned the phrase, "God is Dead." in his essay Concerning the Spiritual in Art. This phrase, borrowed from Friedrich Nietzsche, and applied to art, is a declaration that modernism no longer influences art. Most others would argue that the paradigm shift occurred in 1969 when artists began to reject formalism (anti-formalism). I think that's an American-centric point-of-view, but, by-all-means argue away in the comments section below.Regardless of whether Kandinsky is the father of Post-Modern or not, he is certainly the father of abstract painting. To Kandinsky and his contemporaries, in order for art to be pure, and to be free from the excessive decorations of the past, paintings had to achieve what music had always achieved - pure abstraction. So, he laid out a set of formal rules in which the colors of paint could be understood as musical notes in a scale. He then composed paintings with these pure colors and pure geometric shapes as though a musician composing a score.
Kandinsky was Russian. He taught for a time at the Bauhaus School in Germany. He was a writer, a painter, an art theorist, and a Gnostic prophet. There is so much more to say about Kandinsky, but I will leave this biography now - before I get in over my head.
Composition-X (1939)
Composition-X was Kandinsky's final major work. Set on a black field, are several pastel-colored, indistinguishable geometric shapes, and a sort of multicolored confetti. Also, in the upper left corner is a procession of hieroglyphs leading up to a modern city skyline.
There is a musicality to this work that feels very Miles Davis like - very jazzy and cool. But, despite the improvisational feel, Kandinsky's paintings were formally worked out in great detail. Certainly, he wanted viewers to sense improvisation, but it was meant to be a feeling that was sculpted and dictated by the artist.
If this is true, then this painting is quite modern. Modern in this sense: the superior intellect of the artist determines how you the viewer should interpret the meaning of the painting. If it were truly post-modern, the final evaluation of the artwork would be left to you as the viewer to decide. Here, Kandinsky is communicating a particular sacred idea through the medium of a painting. If you are thinking as you look at it "Well, I think it kind-of feels like this," you are wrong. Kandinsky and his peers were Gnostics who believed in their elitism to the point that they believed they alone could understand God, and that it was their duty to explain God's will to us feeble-minded people who have not the power of free will.
So, while I argue that Kandinsky as a writer inserted the final nail in the coffin of modernism, he nonetheless painted as a modernist. A contradiction? Yes; and I think it was a contradiction that was a source of much strife and loneliness for Kandinsky as his peers progressed while he diligently maintained his artistic integrity.
So, what is the message in this painting? Well, if it could have been written in words Kandinsky would not have painted the message. Look at the painting, let it alter your soul, and you will have received the message.
Wassily Kandinsky's Composition-X hangs in the Kunst Sammlung Nordrhein Westfalen in Düsseldorf Germany.
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