Page 204 - Uros Todorovic Byzantine Painting Contemporary Eyes

Byzantine Painting through Contemporary Eyes
stated in his book On the Spiritual in Art: “The artist must be blind to distinctions be- tween ‘recognised’ or ‘unrecognised’ conventions of form, deaf to the transitory teach- ing and demands of his particular age.”10
In spite of spending most of his life away from his homeland, Kandinsky always car- ried Russia in his heart. However, he was not entirely immune to the occultist aspira- tions which were popular at that time in Western Europe. For example, after attending a lecture delivered in Berlin by Rudolf Steiner, who was the founder of both the Anthrop- osophical movement and the German Theosophical Society, Kandinsky showed personal interest in Steiner’s teachings.11
The influences of Arthur Schopenhauer and Goethe’s ideas, were also significant for the formation of Kandinsky’s aesthetic theories. In particular, Kandinsky’s book On the Spiritual in Art reflects the influences from Schopenhauer’s The World as Will and Rep- resentation (1818).12 Accordingly, Goethe’s theories of colour (Farbenlehre) constituted an area of Kandinsky’s absorbed intellectual interest. However, his own aesthetic convic- tions led him to reject some of the colour symbolism of both Goethe and Steiner.13
The period between 1908 and 1911 was crucial for the formation of Kandinsky’s ab- straction. During this period, objects from nature were being gradually dissolved into abstract shapes. For example, in Murnau Garden I (image 6) a section towards the right side of the composition is rendered in a two-dimensional manner and is almost com- pletely abstract. The same transitional character can be observed in Murnau-Landscape with Tower (image 7) and Murnau with Church I (image 8).
In 1911, together with Franz Marc, Gabriele Münter and Alfred Kubin (1877–1959), Kandinsky resigned from The New Artists’ Association of Munich. Prior to this, this asso- ciation had rejected Kandinsky’s painting Composition V (image 19) on the grounds that it was too large. However, the real cause for the rejection of this painting was the high level of its abstraction. Soon after, together with Franz Marc, Kandinsky established The Blue Rider exhibiting society, whose first exhibition took place in the Thannhauser gal- lery of Munich. These events were contemporaneous with the pivotal phase of change in the artistic climate of the 20th century Europe. Thereafter, the orientation towards the abstract became irreversible.
10 Wassily Kandinsky, Concerning the Spiritual in Art, trans. Michael T. H. Sadler (Tate Publishing, 2006), 69.
11 John Golding, Paths to the Absolute: Mondrian, Malevich, Kandinsky, Pollock, Newman, Rothko and Still (Thames & Hudson, 2000), 87.
12 This is also noted by Golding in: John Golding, Paths to the Absolute: Mondrian, Malevich, Kandinsky, Pollock, Newman, Rothko and Still (Thames & Hudson, 2000), 87.
13 Ibid., 87.
202