Wassily Kandinsky

Okay, art has always been a so so subject for me. I still to this day don't think I hold a shred of artistic capability, or could relate to art in any way. Until.... I found an artist I could understand and relate to very much so. His art made me look at it in general, in a different way. And I myself very much respect this mans vision and opinion of art in every way.

It all started when I took a freshman art class in school. We were told to pick an artist work we admired and write a paper and then make an attempt to sketch one of their paintings with our own interpretation in it. So of course, I was looking at every painters artwork I could find, with intense confusion. I like to look at things with simplicity but try and understand some significance or symbolism. I get paintings are beautiful but I would like to know what they are firstly and not be made out to look like an idiot for not seeing it with painters x-ray vision eyes. Do you need some sort of rare gift to see beauty in anything whatsoever? I mean it's comprehension.

I was at a loss and when every single student in that class had picked something I had to say I was feeling somewhat dazed. It couldn't be that everyone in that class looked at a Picasso painting and knew exactly what it was and understood. I mean can you? You can say it is open to your own interpretation but ahem, that's not what picasso said...

"If I paint a hammer and sickle people may think it is a representation of Communism, but for me it is only a hammer and sickle. I just want to reproduce the objects for what they are, not for what they mean."

Pablo Picasso. Las Meninas (Group), 1957.

I mean honestly if you never researched this painting you'd never be able to tell what it is.

Sadly you paint these objects for what they are but I certainly can not truly tell what it is. And I think many art critics only pretend to know and hold their opinions as the holy grail of artistic direction. So you do try to comprehend but then that interpretation, gets bombed by many others. And that my friends is what we call the superior circle of the "art" world. With your attempt to understand they make you feel idiotic for not having the "eyes" for art. Please. Their nastiness and superiority lacks imagination they critique only what's in the boundaries of their own mindset. Which doesn't stretch very far at any rate. It's like not sitting in the "in" crowd at the lunch table.

Now let me just add I completely understand it takes skill to draw, paint, ect.. But to critique it and get paid, well that is hardly amiable. I think they have a job of rating things and commenting when in fact no one wants their opinion. I am just commentating on the insane way the art communities look at things. And when someone doesn't see things your way they label you as ignorant and even more insulting, stupid. I'd rather go with how Basquiat looked at critics.

“I don’t listen to what art critics say. I don’t know anybody who needs a critic to find out what art is."

Jean-Michel Basquiat

Another painter I admire but definitely very abstract, I like him more for his background.

I think my teacher could tell I didn't belong in that class. Damn high school requirements! She let me have some more time to look things over and research some more artists. That is how I found Wassily Kandinsky. I read a lot about him. The more I read the more I liked.

"Just because an artist uses 'abstract' methods, it does not mean that he is an 'abstract' artist. It doesn't even mean that he is an artist. Just as there are enough dead triangles (be they white or green), there are just as many dead roosters, dead horses or dead guitars. One can just as easily be a "realist academic" as an "abstract academic". A form without content is not a hand, just an empty glove full of air".

-Kandinsky

I get that things in itself, paintings in itself, art in itself are one of this worlds gifts and beauties. Some gifts don't have to be explained they just are. Simple. Beautiful. Magnificent. Explainable. Unexplainable. Abstract and not.

I haven't looked at many artists that were considered to be abstract and understood them like I do Kandinsky. Because he did consider himself abstract but didn't give meaning to what it was to be abstract at all. It was what it was. He had odds with critics because they made things to complicated. As did many artists along with them. He was an outsider in a way and died that way. Either way his paintings were colorful, vibrant, beautiful works of art. That were just there to be enjoyed. In each one there was himself inside them and in that way I saw the beauty in art and related to it completely. It gave me a chance to love artwork without being completely judged as to what I can do or what my opinions were. And for that I will always love Kandinsky.

As you can guess I chose him for my project, the art work didn't go so well, okay I admit it was completely crappy, haha. But I walked away with a great sense of knowledge that art lies within its own sense of brilliance enjoy it, art is free, you keep putting labels and descriptions on it, it loses its meaning all together.

Kandinsky , Farbstudie Quadrate, 1913

"… lend your ears to music, open your eyes to painting, and … stop thinking! Just ask yourself whether the work has enabled you to “walk about” into a hitherto unknown world. If the answer is yes, what more do you want?"