Se we try to locate ourselves in time and space when this work was finished, not only would we have to travel over 100 years back in time and place ourselves in pre-World War I Europe, we are talking about the first airplane flights, the first cars made in mass production and the expansion of the use of photography, which greatly influenced the future of painting. A post-impressionist era in artistic terms.
It is difficult to imagine how a scholar of law and economics would abandon such complex sciences and such a prominent future. If today it is difficult to tell your parents (or have your child tell you) that you are going to leave your career to dedicate yourself to art, how would it have been in the late 19th century. Who would have imagined that years later Wassily Kandinsky would have completed one of the most important abstract works of art in history “Composition VII”, a monumental and imposing painting 2 meters high by 3 meters wide.
Influenced by an exhibition of Monet and his series of “Haystacks”, his early figurative works and landscapes show loose brushstrokes, like the impressionists, and a desire for color. Composition VII maintains this color trend of his figurative works. However, he enters the world of abstract art, where the reality depicted on the canvas is that which the artist creates and describes with free colors and forms.
The work is a rectangular composition divided almost symmetrically diagonally by pastel colors on the left side and clean colors on the right. There is a lot of work with primary and secondary colors painted in irregular geometric shapes contrasted by their complementary colors or saturation contrasts ranging from pastel colors almost to white to black.
I could dare to say that the shapes and colors compose the work in swirling and enveloping forms until reaching the focal point of the work located in the middle of it, where the shapes become smaller and more vibrant in relation to the rest of the painting as well as a much more marked contrast between the colors.
There are two reasons why I chose this work as my first article. First, because it is one of my favorite paintings and it was the image that accompanied me throughout my first year at art school stuck in my sketchbook. I still have that sketchbook with the image of the work; and second, I chose it for its magnitude. Being in front of a work of the magnitude and size of Composition VII is an indescribable sensation and experience. I have not yet had the opportunity to see this work live but I have seen others of similar sizes, and I have a work of the same measurements, from my own experience I can say that being in front of them is impressive.
So if one of these days you end up strolling in Moscow, do not miss the opportunity to visit the State Tretyakov Gallery and see one of the best abstract expressions of Russian painting.
Punto, jornalista visionário e autor prolífico, rapidamente se estabeleceu como uma figura-chave no cenário dos meios de comunicação. Apaixonado pelo jornalismo investigativo e pela informação verídica, Punto cativou um vasto público com sua abordagem direta e seu jornalismo rigoroso.
