Day 343 - Kandinsky


 May 25, 2023

Gallery 911's ten paintings represent a variety of styles. Some of the works are by painters I instantly recognize - Franz Marc, Mondrian, and Kandinsky, for example. But I've never heard of other artists: Horace Pippin, Alice Trumbull Mason, and a Brazilian painter named Vicente de Rego Monteiro. I quite like a small painting by Irene Rice Pereira that is composed of rectangles in various sizes and colors and with different textures. The room also contains busts by Modigliani and Calder; both reflect the  influence of the "discovery" of African sculpture during the opening years of the 20th century.

A large painting (approximately 54 inches wide and 48 inches high)  that Kandinsky made in 1912,   entitled "Improvisation 27 (Garden of Love II)," is the work that mosts baffles me.  At first glance it appears to be a collection of irregular splotches of various colors - red, peach, mustard, teal, blue - against thin washes of tan or bare canvas,  broken by squiggly dark lines.  Then I make out two forms that somewhat resemble embracing couples. The placard tells me there's a third couple - maybe that's the black and white shape in the lower right-hand corner (although my first association to that shape was to labia)?  The placard suggests that the painting's subtitle refers to the Garden of Eden. It further explains that Kandinsky's theory of aesthetics emphasized using abstract forms and colors to evoke an inner subconscious world. and that Kandinsky thought of abstraction as a way to bring painting closer to the richness of music. Okay, this helps a bit. I don't much like this painting, but the print of a Kandinsky painting in the Phillips Collection that appears below sits over my bed (and used to be the focal point of my living room); its forms and lines have always reminded me of the notes on a musical staff.

As I walk around the gallery, I am very aware of the dates of the artists and the ages at which they died. Some were very young (Modigliani); none were very old. Sobering to me as I go about revising my will.



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