Page 213 - Uros Todorovic Byzantine Painting Contemporary Eyes

Chapter IV
image 13 is incorporated within his process of the “musicalisation” of painting, where the reference to the material world irreversibly fades away. It is not without consequence that the works of the previous year (1910) are remembered by Kandinsky as characteris- tically transitional:
“Thus, I dissolved objects to a greater or lesser extent within the same picture, so that they might not all be recognised at once and so that these emotional overtones might thus be experienced gradually by the spectator, one after another. Here and there, purely abstract forms entered of their own accord, which therefore had to produce a purely pictorial effect without the above-mentioned coloration. In other words, I myself was not yet sufficiently mature to experience purely abstract form without bridging the gap by means of objects. If I had possessed this ability, I would already have created absolute pictures at that time.”33
Therefore, it was in 1911 that Kandinsky’s gradual pursuit of pure abstraction, for which the Byzantine-inspired theme of The Blue Rider is effectively a synonym, was fi- nally accomplished. His other characteristically transitional works of the same period also allude to a distinct Byzantine element. For example, when we compare Kandinsky’s All Saints I (image 20) to the detail of the scene of the Resurrection in the chapel of the church of Chora (image 21), we detect an unassuming similarity in the structure and in the general dynamics of composition.
Image 24 shows a 1913 photograph of a contemplative Kandinsky in his Munich stu- dio. Among his works which are hung on the wall, we observe three Orthodox crosses; the wall in itself appears as a modern version of the traditional icon corner in Russian dwellings. In view of this photograph one cannot help posing a question: is Kandinsky perhaps quite consciously contemplating a Modern Byzantine painting? In the following paragraphs, we shall assess the Byzantine influences in Kandinsky’s 1932 work entitled Fixed Flight (image 31) and therein we shall visually demonstrate how even at this later stage his concept of the “musicalisation” of painting remained closely related to the Byz- antine experience of the image being musicalised into the Byzantine chant.
When inside the chapel of the church of Chora (in Constantinople) the vision of the observer gradually moves upwards, the depiction of Archangel Michael is encountered above the scene of the Resurrection (images 25 and 26). Image 26 shows this transition from one wall-surface to another – from the concave setting of the scene of Resurrection to a wide arch-like semicircular (ceiling) surface in the middle of which Archangel Michael is depicted. In comparison to the scale of the figure of Christ in the scene of Resurrection,
33 This citation is from: Ulrike Becks-Malorny, Kandinsky (Taschen, 2007), 39. 211