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Orchestration

Vasily (or Wassily) Kandinsky

b.1866 Moscow

d.1944 Neuilly-sur-Seine,France

Movement-Expressionism,Abstract art

 

Painting With White Border (1913)

-oil on canvas

 

Kandinsky's Painting With White Border was inspired by a trip the artist took to Moscow in fall,1912.Upon his return to Munich where he had been living intermittently in 1896,Kandinsky searched for a way to visually record the "extremely powerful impressions"of his native Russia that lingered in his memory.Over a period of five months he explored various motifs and compositions in study after study moving freely from pencil,pen,and ink,watercolor,and oil.After he produced 16 studies,Kandinsky finally arrived at the pictorial solution to the painting:the white border (aha!).In his seminal 1911 treatise.On the Spiritual in Art:And Painting in Particular,Kandinsky wrote that color white "expresses a harmony of silence...pregnant with possibilities&quote

www.guggenheim.org/exhibition/kandinskys-painting-with-wh...

 

When I saw the painting it resembled an orchestra to me.Now,I know it was the "white border" (like a stage) around the colors that made it appear that way.Interestingly,Kandinsky often used musical terms to identify his work like "improvisation" for his spontaneous works and "composition" for his elaborate works.

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Uploaded on July 31, 2017
Taken on July 31, 2017