Wassili Kandinsky

(1866 - 1944)1

1454

Искусство

Art

Issue 1, 5-20 January 1919

Moscow: Izo Narkompros, 1919

530 x 355 mm. 4 pages

Edition: unknown. 

The journal Art was published in 1919 by the Fine Arts department of the Commissariat of Enlightenment. Head of the department for Moscow was Vladimir Tatlin. He invited Kandinsky to participate in activities in the realm of education and museum reform. Kandinsky also supervised the publication of the journal Iskusstvo that was published by the department. For the journal Kandinsky not only wrote important essays but he also provided woodcuts as headpiece or illustration. In October 1918 Kandinsky became a professor at the Moscow Svomas (Free Art Studios).  He drew up his program in Art which he derived from On the Spiritual in Art. But Kandinsky’s program was met with resistance by contributing artists, like Rodchenko and Stepanova and art critics like Brik, who were the ardent propagators of Constructivism. Nevertheless during this period (between 1918 and 1921) Kandinsky was able to disseminate his views on art on an unprecedented scale in Russia. The woodcuts that Kandinsky designed for the journal are typical of his work in these years. The image has become totally non-objective and the spherical contours in which the form elements are similar to those found in the paintings of this period.

References:

Newtonville 1984, pp. 29-34