Composition 8

On this day in 1866, Wassily Kandinsky, the Russian painter generally credited as the pioneer of Abstract Art, was born in Moscow.  :)  On this occasion, we are very happy to feature one of his amazing works in the DailyArt app, as well as offer it as a physical print created in the highest quality on DailyArt Prints. Check it out here and enjoy!

Kandinsky himself regarded Composition VIII as the high point of his postwar achievement. In this work, circles, triangles, and linear elements create a surface of interacting geometric forms. The importance of circles in this painting foreshadows the dominant role they would play in many subsequent works. Kandinsky evolved an abstract style that reflected the utopian artistic experiments of the Russian avant-garde. The emphasis on geometric forms, promoted by artists such as Kazimir Malevich, sought to establish a universal aesthetic language. This lyrical abstraction includes dynamic compositional elements, resembling mountains, the sun, and the atmosphere, that still refer to the landscape. In 1922, Kandinsky joined the faculty of the Bauhaus school, where he taught until 1933 when the Nazi government closed it down and confiscated 57 of Kandinsky’s works in its purge of “degenerate art.” 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.

P.S. Click here to see rare footage of Kandinsky drawing one of his abstract compositions!  :O

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