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Abstractism
By- Thakur Dhirendranath
Abstract art uses a visual language of form, color and line to create a
composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual
references in the world.[1] Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 19th century,
underpinned by the logic ofperspective and an attempt to reproduce an
illusion of visible reality. The arts of cultures other than the European had
become accessible and showed alternative ways of describing visual experience
to the artist. By the end of the 19th century many artists felt a need to
create a new kind of art which would encompass the fundamental changes taking
place in technology, science and philosophy. The sources from which individual
artists drew their theoretical arguments were diverse, and reflected the social
and intellectual preoccupations in all areas of Western culture at that time.[2]
Abstraction indicates a departure from
reality in depiction of imagery in art. This departure from accurate
representation can be slight, partial, or complete. Abstraction exists along a
continuum. Even art that aims for verisimilitude of the highest degree can be
said to be abstract, at least theoretically, since perfect representation is
likely to be exceedingly elusive. Artwork which takes liberties, altering for
instance color and form in ways that are conspicuous, can be said to be
partially abstract. Total abstraction bears no trace of any reference to
anything recognizable. Ingeometric abstraction, for instance, one is unlikely to
find references to naturalistic entities. Figurative art and total abstraction are almostmutually
exclusive. But figurative and representational (or realistic) art often contains partial abstraction.Both geometric abstraction and lyrical abstraction are often totally abstract. Among the
very numerous art movements that embody partial abstraction would
be for instance fauvism in which color is conspicuously and
deliberately altered vis-a-vis reality, and cubism, which blatantly alters the forms of the real
life entities depicted.[3][4]
Much of the art of earlier cultures – signs
and marks on pottery, textiles, and inscriptions and paintings on rock – were
simple, geometric and linear forms which might have had a symbolic or
decorative purpose.[5] It is at this level of visual meaning
that abstract art communicates. One can enjoy the beauty of Chinese calligraphy or Islamic calligraphy without being able to read it.
19th century
Three art movements which contributed to the development
of abstract art were Romanticism, Impressionism and Expressionism. Artistic independence for artists
was advanced during the 19th century. Patronage from the church diminished and
private patronage from the public became more capable of providing a livelihood
for artists.[citation needed]
James McNeill Whistler, Nocturne
in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket (1874),Detroit Institute of Arts. A near
abstraction, in 1877 Whistler sued the art critic John
Ruskin for libel after the critic condemned his painting Nocturne in Black and Gold: The
Falling Rocket. Ruskin accused Whistler of "ask[ing] two hundred guineas for throwing a pot of paint in the public's face." [6][7]
Early intimations of a new art had
been made by James McNeill Whistler who, in his painting Nocturne in Black and Gold: The falling Rocket, (1872), placed greater emphasis on
visual sensation than the depiction of objects. An objective interest in what is seen,
can be discerned from the paintings ofJohn Constable, J M W Turner, Camille Corot and from them to the Impressionists
who continued the plein air painting of the Barbizon school. Paul Cézanne had begun as an Impressionist but his
aim - to make a logical construction of reality based on a view from a single
point,[8] with modulated colour in flat areas -
became the basis of a new visual art, later to be developed into Cubism by Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso.
Expressionist painters explored the bold use of
paint surface, drawing distortions and exaggerations, and intense color.
Expressionists produced emotionally charged paintings that were reactions to
and perceptions of contemporary experience; and reactions to Impressionism and other more conservative directions
of late 19th-century painting. The Expressionists drastically changed the
emphasis on subject matter in favor of the portrayal of psychological states of
being. Although artists like Edvard Munch and James Ensor drew influences principally from the
work of the Post-Impressioniststhey were instrumental to the advent
of abstraction in the 20th century.
Additionally in the late 19th century
in Eastern Europe mysticism and early modernist religious philosophy as expressed by theosophist Mme. Blavatsky had a profound impact on pioneer geometric artists like Wassily Kandinsky, and Hilma af Klint. The mystical teaching of Georges Gurdjieff and P.D. Ouspensky also had an important influence on the
early formations of the geometric abstract styles of Piet Mondrian and his colleagues in the early 20th
century.[9]
20th century
Post Impressionism as practiced by Paul Gauguin, Georges Seurat, Vincent van Gogh and Paul Cézannehad an enormous impact on 20th-century art and led to the advent of 20th-century
abstraction. The heritage of painters like Van Gogh, Cézanne, Gauguin, and Seurat was essential for the development of modern art. At the beginning of the 20th century Henri Matisse and several other young artists
including the pre-cubistGeorges Braque, André Derain, Raoul Dufy and Maurice de Vlaminck revolutionized the Paris art world
with "wild", multi-colored, expressive, landscapes and figure
paintings that the critics called Fauvism. With his expressive use of color and his
free and imaginative drawing Henri Matisse comes very close to pure abstraction
in French Window at Collioure, (1914),View of Notre-Dame, (1914), and The Yellow Curtain from 1915. The raw language of color
as developed by the Fauves directly influenced another pioneer of
abstraction Wassily Kandinsky (see illustration).
Although Cubism ultimately depends upon subject matter, it
became, along with Fauvism, the art movement that directly opened the
door to abstraction in the 20th century. Pablo Picasso made his first cubist paintings based on Cézanne's idea that all
depiction of nature can be reduced to three solids:cube, sphere and cone. With the painting Les
Demoiselles d'Avignon 1907, Picasso dramatically created a new and
radical picture depicting a raw and primitive brothel scene with five
prostitutes, violently painted women, reminiscent of African tribal masks and his own new Cubist inventions. Analytic cubism was jointly developed by Pablo Picasso
and Georges Braque, from about 1908 through 1912.
Analytic cubism, the first clear manifestation of cubism, was followed by Synthetic cubism, practised by Braque, Picasso, Fernand Léger, Juan Gris, Albert Gleizes, Marcel Duchamp and countless other artists into the
1920s. Synthetic cubism is characterized by the introduction
of different textures, surfaces, collage elements, papier collé and a large variety of merged subject
matter. The collage artists like Kurt Schwitters andMan Ray and others taking the clue from Cubism were instrumental to the development of the
movement called Dada.
Since the turn of the century cultural
connections between artists of the major European and American cities had
become extremely active as they strove to create an art form equal to the high
aspirations of modernism. Ideas were able to cross-fertilize by means
of artists books, exhibitions and manifestos so that many sources were open to
experimentation and discussion, and formed a basis for a diversity of modes of
abstraction. The following extract from,'The World Backwards', gives some
impression of the inter-connectedness of culture at the time: 'David Burliuk's knowledge of modern art movements
must have been extremely up-to-date, for the second Knave of Diamonds exhibition, held in January 1912 (in Moscow)
included not only paintings sent from Munich, but some members of the German Die Brücke group, while from Paris came work by Robert Delaunay, Henri Matisse and Fernand Léger, as well as Picasso. During the
Spring David Burliuk gave two lectures on cubism and planned a polemical
publication, which the Knave of Diamonds was to finance. He went abroad in May
and came back determined to rival the almanac Der Blaue Reiter which had emerged from the printers
while he was in Germany'.
From 1909 to 1913 many experimental
works in the search for this 'pure art' had been created: Francis Picabia painted Caoutchouc, 1909,[13] The Spring, 1912,[14] Dances at the Spring[15] andThe Procession, Seville,
1912;[16] Wassily Kandinsky painted Untitled (First Abstract
Watercolor), 1910,[17] Improvisation 21A, the Impression series, and Picture with a Circle (1911);[18]František Kupka had painted the Orphist works, Discs of Newton (Study for Fugue in Two Colors), 1912[19] and Amorpha,
Fugue en deux couleurs (Fugue
in Two Colors), 1912; Robert Delaunaypainted a series entitled Simultaneous Windows and Formes
Circulaires, Soleil n°2 (1912–13);[20] Léopold Survage created Colored Rhythm (Study for the film), 1913;[21] Piet Mondrian, paintedTableau No. 1 and Composition
No. 11, 1913.[22]
And the search continued: The Rayist (Luchizm) drawings of Natalia Goncharova and Mikhail Larionov, used lines like rays of light to
make a construction. Kasimir Malevich completed his first entirely abstract
work, the Suprematist, 'Black Square', in 1915. Another of
the Suprematist group'Liubov Popova, created the Architectonic
Constructions and Spatial Force Constructions between 1916 and 1921. Piet Mondrian was evolving his abstract language, of
horizontal and vertical lines with rectangles of colour, between 1915 and 1919,
Neo-Plasticism was the aesthetic which Mondrian, Theo van Doesburg and other in
the group De Stijl intended to reshape the environment of
the future.
Wassily Kandinsky
By-Thakur
Dhirendranath
Wassily
Wassilyevich Kandinsky 16
December 1866 – 13 December 1944 was an influential Russian painter and art theorist. He is credited with painting the first
purely abstract works. Born in Moscow,
Kandinsky spent his childhood in Odessa. He enrolled at the University of Moscow, studying law andeconomics. Successful in his profession—he was offered
a professorship (chair of Roman Law) at the University of Dorpat—he began painting studies
(life-drawing, sketching and anatomy) at the age of 30.
In 1896 Kandinsky settled in Munich,
studying first at Anton Ažbe's private school and then at the Academy
of Fine Arts. He
returned to Moscow in 1914, after the outbreak of World War I. Kandinsky was unsympathetic to the
official theories on art in Communist Moscow, and returned to Germany in 1921.
There, he taught at the Bauhaus school of art and architecture from
1922 until the Nazis closed it in 1933. He then moved to France where he lived for the rest of his life,
becoming a French citizen in 1939 and producing some of his most prominent art.
He died at Neuilly-sur-Seine in 1944.
Kandinsky's creation of abstract work followed
a long period of development and maturation of intense thought based on his
artistic experiences. He called this devotion to inner beauty, fervor of spirit, and spiritual
desire inner necessity; it
was a central aspect of his art.
Kandinsky was born in Moscow, the son of Lidia
Ticheeva and Vasily Silvestrovich Kandinsky, a tea merchant.[1][2] Kandinsky learned from a variety of
sources while in Moscow. Later in life, he would recall being fascinated and
stimulated by colour as a child. His fascination with colour symbolism and
psychology continued as he grew. In 1889, he was part of an ethnographic
research group which travelled to the Vologda region north of Moscow. In Looks on the Past, he relates
that the houses and churches were decorated with such shimmering colours that
upon entering them, he felt that he was moving into a painting. This
experience, and his study of the region's folk art (particularly the use of
bright colours on a dark background), was reflected in much of his early work.
A few years later he first likened painting to composing music in the manner
for which he would become noted, writing, "Colour is the keyboard, the
eyes are the hammers, the soul is the piano with many strings. The artist is
the hand which plays, touching one key or another, to cause vibrations in the
soul".[3]
In 1896, at the age of 30, Kandinsky gave up a
promising career teaching law and economics to enroll in art school in Munich.
He was not immediately granted admission, and began learning art on his own.
That same year, before leaving Moscow, he saw an exhibit of paintings by Monet. He was particularly taken with the
impressionistic style of Haystacks; this, to him, had a powerful sense
of colour almost independent of the objects themselves. Later, he would write
about this experience:
Kandinsky was similarly influenced
during this period by Richard Wagner's Lohengrin which, he felt, pushed the limits of
music and melody beyond standard lyricism.[citation
needed] He was also spiritually influenced by H. P. Blavatsky (1831–1891), the best-known exponent
of theosophy. Theosophical theory postulates that creation
is a geometrical progression, beginning with a single point. The creative
aspect of the form is expressed by a descending series of circles, triangles
and squares. Kandinsky's book Concerning
the Spiritual In Art (1910)
and Point and Line to Plane (1926) echoed this theosophical tenet.
Illustrations by John Varley in Thought Forms (1901) influenced him visually.[5]
Perhaps the most important of his
paintings from the first decade of the 1900s was The Blue Rider (1903), which shows a small cloaked
figure on a speeding horse rushing through a rocky meadow. The rider's cloak is
medium blue, which casts a darker-blue shadow. In the foreground are more
amorphous blue shadows, the counterparts of the fall trees in the background.
The blue rider in the painting is prominent (but not clearly defined), and the
horse has an unnatural gait (which Kandinsky must have known). Some art
historians believe[citation needed] that a second figure (perhaps a child)
is being held by the rider, although this may be another shadow from the
solitary rider. This intentional disjunction, allowing viewers to participate
in the creation of the artwork, became an increasingly conscious technique used
by Kandinsky in subsequent years; it culminated in the abstract works of the
1911–1914 period. In The Blue
Rider, Kandinsky shows the rider more as a series of colours than in
specific detail. This painting is not exceptional in that regard when compared
with contemporary painters, but it shows the direction Kandinsky would take
only a few years later.
From 1906 to 1908 Kandinsky spent a great deal of time travelling across
Europe (he was an associate of the Blue Rose symbolist group of Moscow), until he
settled in the small Bavarian town of Murnau. The
Blue Mountain (1908–1909) was
painted at this time, demonstrating his trend toward abstraction. A mountain of
blue is flanked by two broad trees, one yellow and one red. A procession, with
three riders and several others, crosses at the bottom. The faces, clothing,
and saddles of the riders are each a single colour, and neither they nor the
walking figures display any real detail. The flat planes and the contours also
are indicative of Fauvist influence. The broad use of colour in The Blue Mountain illustrates Kandinsky's inclination
toward an art in which colour is presented independently of form, and which
each colour is given equal attention. The composition is more planar; the
painting is divided into four sections: the sky, the red tree, the yellow tree
and the blue mountain with the three riders.
Blue Rider Period (1911–1914
Kandinsky's paintings from this period are
large, expressive coloured masses evaluated independently from forms and lines;
these serve no longer to delimit them, but overlap freely to form paintings of
extraordinary force. Music was important to the birth of abstract art, since
music is abstract by nature—it does not try to represent the exterior world,
but expresses in an immediate way the inner feelings of the soul. Kandinsky
sometimes used musical terms to identify his works; he called his most
spontaneous paintings "improvisations" and described more elaborate
works as "compositions."
In addition to painting, Kandinsky was
an art theorist; his influence on the history of Western art stems perhaps more
from his theoretical works than from his paintings. He helped found the Neue
Künstlervereinigung München (Munich New Artists' Association), becoming
its president in 1909. However, the group could not integrate the radical
approach of Kandinsky (and others) with conventional artistic concepts and the
group dissolved in late 1911. Kandinsky then formed a new group, the Blue Rider
(Der Blaue Reiter) with like-minded artists such as August Macke and Franz Marc. The group released an almanac (The Blue
Rider Almanac) and held two exhibits. More of each were planned, but the
outbreak of World War I in 1914 ended these plans and sent
Kandinsky back to Russia via Switzerland and Sweden.
His writing in The Blue Rider Almanac and the treatise "On the
Spiritual In Art" (which was released around the same time) were both a
defence and promotion of abstract art and an affirmation that all forms of art
were equally capable of reaching a level of spirituality. He believed that
colour could be used in a painting as something autonomous, apart from the
visual description of an object or other form.
These ideas had an almost-immediate
international impact, particularly in the English-speaking world.[6] As early as 1912, On the Spiritual In Art was reviewed by Michael Sadleir in the London-based Art News.[7] Interest in Kandinsky grew apace when
Sadleir published an English translation of On
the Spiritual In Art in 1914.
Extracts from the book were published that year in Percy Wyndham Lewis's periodical Blast, and Alfred Orage's weekly cultural newspaper The New Age. Kandinsky had received some notice
earlier in Britain, however; in 1910, he participated in the Allied Artists'
Exhibition (organised by Frank Rutter) at London's Royal Albert Hall. This resulted in his work being
singled out for praise in a review of that show by the artistSpencer Frederick Gore in The
Art News.[8]
Sadleir's interest in Kandinsky also led to
Kandinsky's first works entering a British art collection; Sadleir's father, Michael
Sadler,
acquired several woodprints and the abstract painting Fragment for Composition VII in 1913 following a visit by father
and son to meet Kandinsky in Munich that year. These works were displayed in Leeds,
either in the University or the premises of the Leeds Arts Club, between 1913 and 1923.[9]
Return to Russia (1914–1921
From 1918 to 1921, Kandinsky dealt with the
cultural politics of Russia and collaborated in art education and museum
reform. He painted little during this period, but devoted his time to artistic
teaching, with a program based on form and colour analysis; he also helped
organize the Institute of Artistic Culture in Moscow. In 1916 he met Nina
Andreievskaya, whom he married the following year. His spiritual,
expressionistic view of art was ultimately rejected by the radical members of
the Institute as too individualistic and bourgeois. In 1921, Kandinsky was
invited to go to Germany to attend the Bauhaus of Weimar by its founder, architect Walter Gropius.
On White
II (1923)
Kandinsky taught the basic design class for
beginners and the course on advanced theory at the Bauhaus; he also conducted painting classes and a
workshop in which he augmented his colour theory with new elements of form
psychology. The development of his works on forms study, particularly on points
and line forms, led to the publication of his second theoretical book (Point
and Line to Plane) in 1926. Geometrical elements took on increasing
importance in both his teaching and painting—particularly the circle,
half-circle, the angle, straight lines and curves. This period was intensely
productive. This freedom is characterised in his works by the treatment of
planes rich in colours and gradations—as in Yellow
– red – blue (1925), where
Kandinsky illustrates his distance from the constructivism and suprematism movements influential at the time.
The two-meter-wide Yellow – red – blue (1925) consists of several main forms:
a vertical yellow rectangle, an inclined red cross and a large dark blue
circle; a multitude of straight (or sinuous) black lines, circular arcs,
monochromatic circles and scattered, coloured checkerboards contribute to its
delicate complexity. This simple visual identification of forms and the main
coloured masses present on the canvas is only a first approach to the inner
reality of the work, whose appreciation necessitates deeper observation—not
only of forms and colours involved in the painting but their relationship,
their absolute and relative positions on the canvas and their harmony.
Kandinsky was one of Die Blaue Vier (Blue Four), formed in 1923 with Klee, Feininger and von Jawlensky, which lectured and exhibited in the
United States in 1924. Due to right-wing hostility, the Bauhaus left Weimar and
settled in Dessau in 1925. Following a Nazi smear
campaign the Bauhaus left Dessau in 1932 for Berlin, until its dissolution in July 1933.
Kandinsky then left Germany, settling in Paris.
Theoretical
writings on art
Kandinsky's analyses on forms and
colours result not from simple, arbitrary idea-associations but from the
painter's inner experience. He spent years creating abstract, sensorially rich paintings, working with
form and colour, tirelessly observing his own paintings and those of other
artists, noting their effects on his sense of colour.[12] This subjective experience is
something that anyone can do—not scientific, objective observations but inner,
subjective ones, what French philosopher Michel Henry calls "absolute
subjectivity" or the "absolute phenomenological life".[13]
Concerning the spiritual in art
Published in 1912, Kandinsky's text, Du Spirituel dans l’art,
defines three types of painting; impressions, improvisations and compositions.
While impressions are based on an external reality that serves as a starting
point, improvisations and compositions depict images emergent from the
unconscious, though composition is developed from a more formal point
of view.[14] Kandinsky compares the spiritual life of humanity to a pyramid—the artist has a mission to lead others to
the pinnacle with his work. The point of the pyramid is those few, great
artists. It is a spiritual pyramid, advancing and ascending slowly even if it
sometimes appears immobile. During decadent periods, the soul sinks to the bottom of the pyramid;
humanity searches only for external success, ignoring spiritual forces.[15]
Colours on the painter's palette evoke a
double effect: a purely physical effect on the eye which is charmed by the
beauty of colours, similar to the joyful impression when we eat a delicacy.
This effect can be much deeper, however, causing a vibration of the soul or an
"inner resonance"—a spiritual effect in which the colour touches the
soul itself.[16]
The obvious properties we can see when
we look at an isolated colour and let it act alone; on one side is
the warmth or coldness of the colour tone, and on the other side is the clarity
or obscurity of that tone.[21] Warmth is a tendency towards yellow,
and coldness a tendency towards blue; yellow and blue form the first great,
dynamic contrast.[22] Yellow has an eccentric movement and blue a concentric movement; a yellow surface seems to
move closer to us, while a blue surface seems to move away.[23] Yellow is a typically terrestrial
colour, whose violence can be painful and aggressive.[24] Blue is a celestial colour, evoking a
deep calm.[25] The combination of blue and yellow
yields total immobility and calm, which is green.[26]
Clarity is a tendency towards white, and
obscurity is a tendency towards black. White and black form the second great
contrast, which is static.[23] White is a deep, absolute silence,
full of possibility.[27] Black is nothingness without
possibility, an eternal silence without hope, and corresponds with death. Any
other colour resonates strongly on its neighbors.[28] The mixing of white with black leads
to gray, which possesses no active force and whose tonality is near that of
green. Gray corresponds to immobility without hope; it tends to despair when it
becomes dark, regaining little hope when it lightens.[29]
Red is a warm colour, lively and agitated; it
is forceful, a movement in itself.[29] Mixed with black it becomes brown, a
hard colour.[30] Mixed with yellow, it gains in warmth
and becomes orange, which imparts an irradiating movement on its surroundings.[31] When red is mixed with blue it moves
away from man to become purple, which is a cool red.[32] Red and green form the third great
contrast, and orange and purple the fourth.[33]
In his writings, Kandinsky analyzed
the geometrical elements which make up every painting—the point and the line. He called the physical support and the
material surface on which the artist draws or paints the basic plane, or BP.[34] He did not analyze them objectively, but
from the point of view of their inner effect on the observer.[35]
A point is a small bit of colour put
by the artist on the canvas. It is neither a geometric point nor a mathematical
abstraction; it is extension, form and colour. This form can be a square, a
triangle, a circle, a star or something more complex. The point is the most
concise form but, according to its placement on the basic plane, it will take a
different tonality. It can be isolated or resonate with other points or lines.[36]
A line is the product of a force which
has been applied in a given direction: the force exerted on the pencil or
paintbrush by the artist. The produced linear forms may be of several types: a straight line, which results from a unique
force applied in a single direction; an angular line, resulting from the alternation
of two forces in different directions, or a curved (or wave-like)
line, produced by the effect of two forces acting simultaneously. A plane may be obtained by condensation (from
a line rotated around one of its ends).[37]
T he
subjective effect produced by a line depends on its orientation: a horizontal line corresponds with the ground on
which man rests and moves; it possesses a dark and cold affective tonality
similar to black or blue. A vertical line corresponds with height, and
offers no support; it possesses a luminous, warm tonality close to white and
yellow. A diagonal possesses a more-or-less warm (or
cold) tonality, according to its inclination toward the horizontal or the
vertical.[38]
A force which deploys itself, without
obstacle, as the one which produces a straight line corresponds with lyricism; several forces which
confront (or annoy) each other form a drama.[39] The angle formed by the angular line also has an
inner sonority which is warm and close to yellow for an acute angle (a
triangle), cold and similar to blue for an obtuse angle (a circle), and similar
to red for a right angle (a square).[40]
Paul Klee
By- Thakur Dhirendranath
Paul Klee (German
pronunciation: [paʊ̯l ˈkleː]; 18 December
1879 – 29 June 1940) was a painter born in Münchenbuchsee, Switzerland,
and is considered to be a German-Swiss.[a] His highly individual style was
influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, andsurrealism. He was also a student of orientalism.[1] Klee was a natural draftsman who
experimented with and eventually got deep into color theory, writing about it extensively; his
lectures Writings on Form and Design Theory (Schriften zur
Form und Gestaltungslehre), published in English as thePaul Klee Notebooks, are held to be
as important for modern art as Leonardo da Vinci's A Treatise on
Painting for the Renaissance.[2][3][4] He and his colleague, the
Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky, both taught at the German Bauhaus school of art, design and
architecture. His works reflect his dry humour and his sometimes childlike
perspective, his personal moods and beliefs, and also his musicality.
Early life and training
Paul Klee was born as the second child of the
German music teacher Hans Wilhelm Klee (1849–1940) and the Swiss singer Ida
Marie Klee, née Frick (1855–1921). His sister Mathilde (died 6 December 1953)
was born on 28 January 1876 in Walzenhausen. Their father came from Tann and studied
at the Stuttgart Conservatory singing, piano, organ and
violin, meeting there his future wife Ida Frick. Hans Wilhelm Klee was active
as a music teacher at the Bern State Seminary in Hofwil near Bern until 1931. Klee was able to
develop his music skills as his parents encouraged and inspired him until his
death.[6] In 1880, his family moved to
Bern, where they moved 17 years later after numerous changes of residence into
a house at the Kirchenfeld district.[7] From 1886 to 1890, Klee visited
primary school and received, at the age of 7, violin classes at the Municipal Music School. He was so talented on violin that,
aged 11, he received an invitation to play as an extraordinary member of the
Bern Music Association.[8]
In his early years, following his parents’ wishes,
he focused on becoming a musician; but he decided on the visual arts during his
teen years, partly out of rebellion and partly because of a belief that modern
music lacked meaning for him. He stated, "I didn’t find the idea of going
in for music creatively particularly attractive in view of the decline in the
history of musical achievement."[9] As a musician, he played and
felt emotionally bound to traditional works of the eighteenth and nineteenth century,
but as an artist he craved the freedom to explore radical ideas and styles.[9] At sixteen, Klee’s landscape
drawings already show considerable skill.[10]
With his parents' reluctant permission, in
1898 he began studying art at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich with Heinrich Knirr and Franz von Stuck. He excelled at
drawing but seemed to lack any natural color sense. He later recalled,
"During the third winter I even realized that I probably would never learn
to paint."[13] During these times of youthful
adventure, Klee spent much time in pubs and had affairs with lower class women
and artists' models. He had an illegitimate son in 1900 who died several weeks
after birth.[15]
After receiving his Fine Arts degree, Klee
went to Italy from October 1901 to May 1902[16] with friend Hermann Haller. They stayed in
Rome, Florence, and Naples, and studied the master painters of past centuries.[15] He exclaimed, "The Forum and
the Vatican have spoken
to me. Humanism wants to suffocate me."[17] He responded to the colors of
Italy, but sadly noted, "that a long struggle lies in store for me in this
field of color."[18] For Klee, color represented the
optimism and nobility in art, and a hope for relief from the pessimistic nature
he expressed in his black-and-white grotesques and satires.[18] Returning to Bern, he lived with
his parents for several years, and took occasional art classes. By 1905, he was
developing some experimental techniques, including drawing with a needle on a
blackened pane of glass, resulting in fifty-seven works including his Portrait
of My Father (1906).[12] In the years 1903-5 he also
completed a cycle of eleven zinc-plate etchings called Inventions,
his first exhibited works, in which he illustrated several grotesque
characters.[15][19] He commented, "though I’m
fairly satisfied with my etchings I can’t go on like this. I’m not a
specialist."[20] Klee was still dividing his time
with music, playing the violin in an orchestra and writing concert and theater
reviews.[21]
Marriage and early years
Klee married Bavarian pianist Lily Stumpf in 1906 and
they had one son named Felix Paul in the following year. They lived in a suburb
of Munich, and while she gave piano lessons and occasional performances, he
kept house and tended to his art work. His attempt to be a magazine illustrator
failed.[21] Klee’s art work progressed
slowly for the next five years, partly from having to divide his time with
domestic matters, and partly as he tried to find a new approach to his art. In
1910, he had his first solo exhibition in Bern, which then traveled to three
Swiss cities.
In
January 1911 Alfred Kubin met Klee in Munich and
encouraged him to illustrate Voltaire's Candide. Around this time, Klee's graphic
work increased. His early inclination towards the absurd and the sarcastic was
well received by Kubin, who befriended Klee and became one of his first
significant collectors.[22] Klee met, through Kubin, the art
critic Wilhelm Hausenstein in 1911. Klee was a foundation member and manager of
the Munich artists' union Sema that summer.[23] In autumn he made an
acquaintance with August Macke and Wassily Kandinsky, and in winter
he joined the editorial team of the almanac Der Blaue Reiter, founded by Franz Marc and Kandinsky. On meeting
Kandinsky, Klee recorded, "I came to feel a deep trust in him. He is
somebody, and has an exceptionally beautiful and lucid mind."[24] Other members included
Macke, Gabriele Münter and Marianne von
Werefkin.
Klee became in a few months one of the most important and independent members
of the Blaue Reiter, but he was not yet fully integrated.[25]
The
release of the almanac was delayed for the benefit of an exhibition. The
first Blaue Reiter exhibition took place from 18 December 1911
to 1 January 1912 in the Moderne Galerie Heinrich Thannhauser in Munich. Klee
did not attend it, but in the second exhibition, which occurred from 12
February to 18 March 1912 in the Galerie Goltz, 17 of his graphic works were shown.
The name of this art exhibition was Schwarz-Weiß, as it only
regarded graphic painting.[26] Initially planned to be released
in 1911, the release date of the Der Blau Reiter almanac by
Kandinsky and Marc was delayed in May 1912, including the reproduced ink
drawing Steinhauer by Klee. At the same time, Kandinsky
published his art history writing Über das Geistige in der Kunst.[27]
Participation on
art exhibitions, 1912/1913
The
association opened his mind to modern theories of color. His travels to Paris
in 1912 also exposed him to the ferment of Cubism and the pioneering examples of
"pure painting", an early term for abstract art. The use of bold color by Robert Delaunay and Maurice de Vlaminck also
inspired him.[28] Rather than copy these artists,
Klee began working out his own color experiments in pale watercolors and did
some primitive landscapes, including In the Quarry (1913)
and Houses near the Gravel Pit (1913), using blocks of colour
with limited overlap.[29] Klee acknowledged that "a
long struggle lies in store for me in this field of color" in order to
reach his "distant noble aim." Soon, he discovered "the style
which connects drawing and the realm of color."[18]
Trip to Tunis,
1914
Klee’s
artistic breakthrough came in 1914 when he briefly visited Tunisia with August Macke and Louis Moilliet and was
impressed by the quality of the light there. He wrote, "Colour has taken
possession of me; no longer do I have to chase after it, I know that it has
hold of me forever... Colour and I are one. I am a painter."[30] With that realization,
faithfulness to nature faded in importance. Instead, Klee began to delve into
the "cool romanticism of abstraction".[30] In gaining a second artistic
vocabulary, Klee added color to his abilities in draftsmanship, and in many
works combined them successfully, as he did in one series he called
"operatic paintings".[31][32] One of the most literal examples
of this new synthesis is The Bavarian Don Giovanni (1919).[33]
After
returning home, Klee painted his first pure abstract, In the Style of
Kairouan (1914), composed of colored rectangles and a few circles.[34] The colored rectangle became his
basic building block, what some scholars associate with a musical note, which
Klee combined with other colored blocks to create a color harmony analogous to
a musical composition. His selection of a particular color palette emulates a
musical key. Sometimes he uses complementary pairs of colors, and other times
"dissonant" colors, again reflecting his connection with musicality.[35]
Military career
A
few weeks later, World War I began. At first, Klee was
somewhat detached from it, as he wrote ironically, "I have long had this
war in me. That is why, inwardly, it is none of my concern." [36] Klee was conscripted as a Landsturmsoldat (soldier
of the reserve forces in Prussia or Imperial Germany) on 5 March
1916. The deaths of his friends August Macke and Franz Marc in battle began to affect him.
Venting his distress, he created several pen and ink lithographs on war
themes including Death for the Idea (1915).[37] After finishing the military
training course, which began on 11 March 1916, he was committed as a soldier
behind the front. Klee moved on 20 August to the aircraft maintenance company[b] in Oberschleissheim, executing skilled manual work, such
as restoring aircraftcamouflage, and accompanying aircraft
transports. On 17 January 1917, he was transferred to the USASA Field Station
Augsburg in Gersthofen to work as a clerk for the
treasurer till the end of the war. This allowed him to stay in a small room
outside of the barrack block and continue painting.[38][39]
He
continued to paint during the entire war and managed to exhibit in several
shows. By 1917, Klee’s work was selling well and art critics acclaimed him as
the best of the new German artists.[40] His Ab ovo (1917) is
particularly noteworthy for its sophisticated technique. It employs watercolor
on gauze and paper with a chalk ground, which produces a rich texture of
triangular, circular, and crescent patterns.[30] Demonstrating his range of
exploration, mixing color and line, hisWarning of the Ships (1918)
is a colored drawing filled with symbolic images on a field of suppressed
color.[41]
Mature career
In 1919, Klee applied for a teaching post at
the Academy of Art in Stuttgart.[42] This attempt failed but he had a
major success in securing a three-year contract (with a minimum annual income)
with dealer Hans Goltz, whose influential gallery gave Klee
major exposure, and some commercial success. A retrospective of over 300 works
in 1920 was also notable.[43]
Klee taught at the Bauhaus from January 1921 to April 1931.[44] He was a "Form" master
in the bookbinding, stained glass, and mural painting workshops and was
provided with two studios.[45] In 1922, Kandinsky joined the
staff and resumed his friendship with Klee. Later that year the first Bauhaus
exhibition and festival was held, for which Klee created several of the
advertising materials.[46] Klee welcomed that there were
many conflicting theories and opinions within the Bauhaus: "I also approve
of these forces competing one with the other if the result is
achievement."[47]
Klee was also a member of Die Blaue Vier (The Blue
Four), with Kandinsky, Lyonel Feininger, and Alexej von Jawlensky; formed in 1923,
they lectured and exhibited together in the USA in 1925. That same year, Klee
had his first exhibits in Paris, and he became a hit with the French
Surrealists.[48] Klee visited Egypt in 1928,
which impressed him less than Tunisia. In 1929, the first major monograph on Klee's work was published,
written by Will Grohmann.[49]
Klee also taught at the Düsseldorf Academy
from 1931 to 1933, and was singled out by a Nazi newspaper, "Then that
great fellow Klee comes onto the scene, already famed as a Bauhaus teacher in
Dessau. He tells everyone he's a thoroughbred Arab, but he's a typical Galician
Jew."[50] His home was searched by
the Gestapo and he was
fired from his job.[4][51] His self-portrait Struck
from the
Klee was at the peak of his creative output.
His Ad Parnassum (1932) is considered his masterpiece and the
best example of his pointillist style; it is also one of his
largest, most finely worked paintings.[53][54] He produced nearly 500 works in
1933 during his last year in Germany.[55] However, in 1933, Klee began
experiencing the symptoms of what was diagnosed as scleroderma after his
death. The progression of his fatal disease, which made swallowing very
difficult, can be followed through the art he created in his last years. His
output in 1936 was only 25 pictures. In the later 1930s, his health recovered
somewhat and he was encouraged by a visit from Kandinsky and Picasso.[56] Klee's simpler and larger
designs enabled him to keep up his output in his final years, and in 1939 he
created over 1,200 works, a career high for one year.[57] He used heavier lines and mainly
geometric forms with fewer but larger blocks of color. His varied color
palettes, some with bright colors and others sober, perhaps reflected his alternating
moods of optimism and pessimism.[58] Back in Germany in 1937,
seventeen of Klee's pictures were included in an exhibition of "Degenerate art" and 102 of
his works in public collections were seized by the Nazis.[59]
Death
Klee
suffered from a wasting disease, scleroderma, toward the end of his life, enduring
pain that seems to be reflected in his last works of art. One of his last
paintings, Death and Fire, features a skull in the centre with the
German word for death, "Tod", appearing in the face. He died in Muralto, Locarno, Switzerland, on 29 June
1940 without having obtained Swiss citizenship, despite his birth in that
country. His art work was considered too revolutionary, even degenerate, by the
Swiss authorities, but eventually they accepted his request six days after his
death.[60] His legacy comprises about 9,000
works of art.[18] The words on his tombstone,
Klee's credo, placed there by his son Felix, say, "I cannot be grasped in
the here and now, For my dwelling place is as much among the dead, As the yet
unborn, Slightly closer to the heart of creation than usual, But still not
close enough."[61] He was buried at
Schosshaldenfriedhof, Bern, Switzerland.
Style and methods
Klee
has been variously associated with Expressionism, Cubism, Futurism, Surrealism, and Abstraction, but his pictures
are difficult to classify. He generally worked in isolation from his peers, and
interpreted new art trends in his own way. He was inventive in his methods and
technique. Klee worked in many different media—oil paint, watercolor, ink, pastel, etching, and others. He often combined them
into one work. He used canvas, burlap, muslin, linen, gauze, cardboard, metal
foils, fabric, wallpaper, and newsprint.[62] Klee employed spray paint, knife
application, stamping, glazing, and impasto, and mixed media such as oil with watercolor,
water color with pen and India ink, and oil with tempera.[63]
He
was a natural draftsman, and through long experimentation
developed a mastery of color and tonality. Many of his works combine these
skills. He uses a great variety of color palettes from nearly monochromatic to highly polychromatic. His works often have a fragile
childlike quality to them and are usually on a small scale. He often used
geometric forms as well as letters, numbers, and arrows, and combined them with
figures of animals and people. Some works were completely abstract. Many of his
works and their titles reflect his dry humor and varying moods; some express
political convictions. They frequently allude topoetry, music and dreams and sometimes include words or musical notation. The later works
are distinguished by spidery hieroglyph-like
symbols. Rainer Maria Rilke wrote about
Klee in 1921, "Even if you hadn’t told me he plays the violin, I would
have guessed that on many occasions his drawings were transcriptions of
music."[14]
Pamela
Kort observed: "Klee's 1933 drawings present their beholder with an
unparalleled opportunity to glimpse a central aspect of his aesthetics that has remained largely
unappreciated: his lifelong concern with the possibilities of parody and wit. Herein lies their real significance,
particularly for an audience unaware that Klee's art has political dimensions."[64]
Among
the few plastic works are hand puppets made between 1916 and 1925, for
his son Felix. The artist neither counts them as a component of his oeuvre, nor
does he list them in his catalogue raisonné. Thirty of the
preserved puppets are stored at the Paul Klee Centre, Bern.[65]
Works
Early works
Some
of Klee's early preserved children's drawings, to which his grandmother
encouraged, were listed on his catalogue raisonné. A total of 19
etchings were produced during the Bern years; ten of these were made between
1903 and 1905 in the cycle "Inventionen" (Inventions),[66] which were presented in June
1906 at the "Internationale Kunstausstellung des Vereins bildender
Künstler Münchens 'Secession'" (International Art Exhibition
of the Association for Graphic Arts, Munich, Secession), his first appearance
as a painter in the public.[67] Klee had removed the third
Invention,Pessimistische Allegorie des Gebirges (Pessimistic
Allegory of the Mountain), in February 1906 from his cycle.[68] The satirical etchings, for example Jungfrau
im Baum/Jungfrau (träumend)(Virgin on the tree/Virgin (dreaming)) from 1903
and Greiser Phoenix (Aged Phoenix) from 1905, were classified
by Klee as "surrealistic outposts". Jungfrau im Baum ties
on the motive Le cattive madri (1894) by Giovanni Segantini. The picture was
influenced by grotesk lyric poetries of Alfred Jarry, Max Jacob and Christian
Morgenstern.[69] It features an cultural pessimism,
which can be found at the turn of the 20th century in works by Symbolists. The Invention
Nr. 6, the 1903 etching Zwei Männer, einander in höherer Stellung
vermutend (Two Men, Supposing to be in Major Position), depicts two
naked men, presumably emperor Wilhelm II and Franz Joseph I of
Austria,
recognizable by their hairstyle and beards. As their clothes and insignia were bereft, "both of them
have no clue if their conventional salute […] is in order or not. As they
assume that their counterpart could have been higher rated", they bow and scrape.[70]
Jackson
Pollock
By- Thakur
Dhirendranath
Paul Jackson
Pollock (January 28, 1912 – August 11, 1956), known as Jackson Pollock, was an influential American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. He was well known for his unique style of drip painting.
During his lifetime, Pollock enjoyed
considerable fame and notoriety, a major artist of his generation. Regarded as
reclusive, he had a volatile personality, and struggled with alcoholism for most of his life. In 1945, he
married the artist Lee Krasner, who became an important influence on
his career and on his legacy.[1]
Pollock died at the age of 44 in an
alcohol-related, single-car accident; he was driving. In December 1956, several
months after his death, Pollock was given a memorial retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City. A larger, more comprehensive
exhibition of his work was held there in 1967. In 1998 and 1999, his work was
honored with large-scale retrospective exhibitions at MoMA and at The Tate in London.[2][3]
Early life
Pollock was born in Cody, Wyoming, in 1912,[4] the youngest of five sons. His
parents, Stella May (née McClure) and LeRoy Pollock, were born and grew up in Tingley, Iowa and were educated at Tingley High
School. Pollock's mother is interred at Tingley Cemetery, Ringgold County, Iowa. His father had been born with the
surname McCoy but took the surname of his adoptive parents, neighbors who
adopted him after his own parents had died within a year of each other. Stella
and LeRoy Pollock were Presbyterian; they were of Irish and Scots-Irish descent, respectively.[5]LeRoy Pollock was a farmer and later a land
surveyor for the government, moving for different jobs.[4] Jackson grew up in Arizona and Chico, California.
While living in Echo Park, California, he enrolled at Los Angeles' Manual Arts High School,[6] from which he was expelled. He already
had been expelled in 1928 from another high school. During his early life,
Pollock explored Native
American culture while on surveying trips with his father.[4][7]
In 1930, following his older brother Charles Pollock, he moved to New York City, where
they both studied under Thomas
Hart Benton at the Art
Students League.
Benton's rural American subject matter had little influence on Pollock's work,
but his rhythmic use of paint and his fierce independence were more lasting.[4] From 1938 to 1942, during the Great Depression, Pollock worked for the WPA Federal Art Project.[8]
Trying to deal with his established alcoholism, from 1938 through 1941 Pollock underwent Jungian psychotherapy with Dr. Joseph Henderson and later
with Dr. Violet Staub de Laszlo in 1941-1942. Henderson engaged him through his
art, encouraging Pollock to make drawings. Jungian concepts and archetypes were
expressed in his paintings.[9][10] Recently historians have hypothesized
that Pollock might have had bipolar disorder.[11]
Springs
period and his technique
Pollock signed a gallery contract with Peggy Guggenheim in July 1943. He received the
commission to create Mural (1943), which measures roughly 8 feet
tall by 20 feet long,[12] for the entry to her new townhouse. At
the suggestion of her friend and advisor Marcel Duchamp, Pollock painted the work on canvas,
rather than the wall, so that it would be portable. After seeing the big mural,
the art critic Clement Greenberg wrote: "I took one look at it and
I thought, 'Now that's great art,' and I knew Jackson was the greatest painter
this country had produced."[13]
Marriage and family
In October 1945, Pollock married the American
painter Lee Krasner. In November they moved out of the city to
the Springs area of East Hampton on the south shore of Long Island. With the help of a down-payment loaned by
Peggy Guggenheim, they bought a wood-frame house and barn at 830 Springs
Fireplace Road. Pollock converted the barn into a studio. In that space, he
perfected his big "drip" technique of working with paint, with which
he would become permanently identified.
New
techniques
Pollock was introduced to the use of liquid paint in 1936 at an
experimental workshop in New York City by the Mexican muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros.
He later used paint pouring as one of several techniques on canvases of the
early 1940s, such as Male and
Female and Composition with Pouring I. After his move to Springs, he began
painting with his canvases laid out on the studio floor, and he developed what
was later called his "drip" technique.
He started using synthetic resin-based paints
called alkyd enamels, which, at that time, was a novel
medium. Pollock described this use of household paints, instead of artist’s
paints, as "a natural growth out of a need".[14] He used hardened brushes, sticks, and
even basting syringes as paint applicators. Pollock's technique of pouring and
dripping paint is thought to be one of the origins of the term action painting. With this technique, Pollock was
able to achieve a more immediate means of creating art, the paint now literally
flowing from his chosen tool onto the canvas. By defying the convention of
painting on an upright surface, he added a new dimension by being able to view
and apply paint to his canvases from all directions.
While painting this way, Pollock moved away
from figurative representation, and challenged the Western tradition of using
easel and brush. He used the force of his whole body to paint, which was
expressed on the large canvases. In 1956, Time magazine dubbed Pollock "Jack the
Dripper," due to his painting style.[18]
My painting does
not come from the easel. I prefer to tack the unstretched canvas to the hard
wall or the floor. I need the resistance of a hard surface. On the floor I am
more at ease. I feel nearer, more part of the painting, since this way I can
walk around it, work from the four sides and literally be in the painting.
I continue to get
further away from the usual painter's tools such as easel, palette, brushes,
etc. I prefer sticks, trowels, knives and dripping fluid paint or a heavy impasto with sand, broken glass or other foreign matter added.
Pollock observed Indian sandpainting demonstrations in the 1940s. Referring
to his style of painting on the floor, Pollock stated, “I feel nearer, more a
part of the painting, since this way I can walk round it, work from the four
sides and literally be in the painting. This is akin to the methods of the
Indian sand painters of the West.”[19] Other influences on his drip technique
include the Mexicanmuralists and Surrealist automatism. Pollock denied reliance on
"the accident"; he usually had an idea of how he wanted a particular
piece to appear. His technique combined the movement of his body, over which he
had control, the viscous flow of paint, the force of gravity, and the
absorption of paint into the canvas. It was a mixture of controllable and
uncontrollable factors. Flinging, dripping, pouring, and spattering, he would
move energetically around the canvas, almost as if in a dance, and would not
stop until he saw what he wanted to see.
In 1950, Hans Namuth, a young photographer, wanted to take
pictures (both stills and moving) of Pollock at work. Pollock promised to start
a new painting especially for the photographic session, but when Namuth
arrived, Pollock apologized and told him the painting was finished.
A dripping wet canvas covered the entire floor
… There was complete silence … Pollock looked at the painting. Then,
unexpectedly, he picked up can and paint brush and started to move around the
canvas. It was as if he suddenly realized the painting was not finished. His
movements, slow at first, gradually became faster and more dance like as he
flung black, white, and rust colored paint onto the canvas. He completely
forgot that Lee and I were there; he did not seem to hear the click of the
camera shutter … My photography session lasted as long as he kept painting,
perhaps half an hour. In all that time, Pollock did not stop. How could one
keep up this level of activity? Finally, he said 'This is it.'
In the 21st century, the physicists Richard
Taylor, Micolich and Jonas studied Pollock's works and technique. They
determined that some works display the properties of mathematical fractals.[20]They assert that the works expressed more
fractal qualities as Pollock progressed in his career.[21] The authors speculate that Pollock may
have had an intuition of the nature of chaotic motion, and tried to express
mathematical chaos, more than ten years before "Chaos Theory" was proposed. Their work was
used in trying to evaluate the authenticity of some works that were represented
as Pollock's.
Other contemporary experts have suggested that
Pollock may have imitated popular theories of the time in order to give his
paintings a depth not previously seen.[22]
1950s
Pollock's most famous paintings were made
during the "drip period" between 1947 and 1950. He rocketed to fame
following an August 8, 1949 four-page spread in Life magazine that asked, "Is he the
greatest living painter in the United States?" At the peak of his fame,
Pollock abruptly abandoned the drip style.[23]
Pollock's work after 1951 was darker in color,
including a collection painted in black on unprimed canvases. He later returned
to using color and reintroduced figurative elements.[24] During this period, Pollock had moved
to a more commercial gallery; there was great demand for his work from
collectors. In response to this pressure, along with personal frustration, his alcoholismdeepened.[25]
Death
In 1955, Pollock painted Scent and Search, his last two paintings.[26] He did not paint at all in 1956, but
was making sculptures at Tony Smith’s home: constructions of wire, gauze,
and plaster.[24] Shaped by sand-casting, they have
heavily textured surfaces similar to what Pollock often created in his
paintings.[27]
On August 11, 1956, at 10:15 pm, Pollock died
in a single-car crash in his Oldsmobile convertible while driving under the
influence of alcohol. One of the passengers, Edith Metzger, was also killed in
the accident, which occurred less than a mile from Pollock's home. The other
passenger, Ruth Kligman, an artist and Pollock's mistress,
survived.[28]
For the rest of her life, his widow Lee Krasner managed his estate and ensured that
Pollock's reputation remained strong despite changing art-world trends. The
couple are buried in Green River Cemetery in Springs with a large boulder
marking his grave and a smaller one marking hers.
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