The Russian painter and cosmopolitan Wassily Kandinsky taught at the Bauhaus from 1922 to 1933, having already gained a reputation as a theorist and practitioner of abstract art owing among other things to his book “Concerning the Spiritual in Art” (1912), the almanac “Der Blaue Reiter” (1912) and several exhibitions. He was already living in Germany before he began to work at the Bauhaus, teaching from 1901 to 1902 in Munich at the private art school Phalanx before returning to Russia in 1914. In Moscow he taught from 1918 to 1921 at SOMAS (the Free State Art Studio), the Institute of Artistic Culture INKHuK and the art school VKHuTEMAS. He was appointed to teach at the Bauhaus by its founder Walter Gropius. Up to the school’s eventual closure, Kandinsky remained active at the Bauhaus under its subsequent directors Hannes Meyer and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and despite the school’s relocation from Weimar to Dessau (1925) and from there to Berlin (1932).
During his time at the Bauhaus, Kandinsky taught a variety of courses, published books including a development of his art theory in “Point and Line to Plane” (1926) in the series of Bauhaus books, and produced around 350 oil paintings and a total of 584 watercolour, gouache and tempera paintings. As in his own works from this period, the elementary geometric forms and colours also played an important role in Kandinsky’s classes. As master of form in thewall painting workshop, of which he was head from 1922 to 1925, Kandinsky put to the test his theories regarding the coherencies between the elementary colours of yellow, red and blue and the elementary forms of triangle, square and circle, based on a questionnaire, which was to be filled in by his students.
His classes for the introductory course, later known as the preliminary course, were obligatory for all new students from 1922 to 1930. Initially lasting one term, then two terms from 1925, this featured lessons in both analytical drawing and design theory. Together, the courses were designed to give students the capacity to perceive and interpret colour, form and abstraction as a basis for an autonomous, synthesized design, coupled with an understanding of abstract art as an evolutionary step in art and the history of the human race. In fourteen lecture modules, Kandinsky first addressed art history, then explored the colours yellow and blue, red, white and black, green and grey, orange and violet, and subsequently focused on point, line and plane and their relationships to colour. The lectures were complemented by practical courses for students, group critiques of the outcomes and homework. Kandinsky taught that art was governed by rules, the grammar of which could be learned, even though he also invariably emphasised that art was not possible without intuition. His class in analytical drawing, in which the students for instance set up and connected still life compositions with linear networks and abstracted these based on the elementary forms of circle, square, triangle and rhombus, was part of the design-orientated schooling at the Bauhaus.
In the course of the increasingly functional orientation of the Bauhaus under Hannes Meyer, in 1928 Kandinsky taught an intensive seminar in construction and design for students pursuing their main studies. In fourteen lectures, he compared technology with art, discussed form and content and focused explicitly on construction. In doing so, he made use of a wide range of images from the worlds of art, architecture, technology, daily life in different cultures and flora and fauna.
In addition, Kandinsky taught a painting class from 1927, which from 1928 was referred to as a “free painting class”. However, this was not a painting class per se; rather, the students’ work was discussed in terms of colour, rhythm, tensions and composition. While Kandinsky’s classes were developed as additional options for the students under Hannes Meyer, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe consistently cut down on Kandinsky’s lessons and made them a voluntary part of the students’ curriculum. In Berlin, Kandinsky’s teaching was limited to the “free painting class”, which nevertheless remained popular with the students until the closure of the Bauhaus in 1933. Following his departure from the Bauhaus, Kandinsky moved to Paris in 1933, where he died in 1944.
Biography
Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944)
4.12.1866 Birth in Moscow
1885-1893 Studies law, economics and statistics at the University of Moscow, marries Anja Fedorovna Chimyakina
1896 Moves to Munich
1897-1901 Attends the private painting school of Anton Ažbe and is accepted in Franz von Stuck’s painting class; meets Paul Klee
1901-02 Foundation of the exhibition association and private art school Phalanx, classes in painting and life drawing
1904-1908 Travels with Gabriele Münter to Holland, France, Tunisia, Itally and Switzerland
1911-1912 Publication of the book “Concerning the Spiritual in Art” and the almanac “Der Blaue Reiter” (in collaboration with Franz Marc)
1914-1921 Returns to Moscow, marries Nina Nikolayevna Andreevskaya, works with several Russian arts and cultural institutions (inc. NARKOMPROS, INKHuK)
1921 Leaves for Berlin
1922 Begins to teach at the Bauhaus in Weimar, design of wall paintings for the Juryfreie Kunstschau, Berlin
1923-24 Acquaintance with the art historian Will Grohmann, publication of Grohmann’s first Kandinsky monograph
1924 Foundation of the exhibition group “Die Blaue Vier” with Lyonel Feininger, Alexej von Jawlensky and Paul Klee
1925 Relocates with the Bauhaus to Dessau, moves into one of the Master’s Houses
1926 Publication of the Bauhaus book “Point and Line to Plane”, exhibition to commemorate his sixtieth birthday
1928 Set design for Modest Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition” at the Stadttheater, Dessau
1931 Ceramic wall design for a music room at the Deutsche Bauausstellung in Berlin
1932 Relocates with the Bauhaus to Berlin
1933 Closure of the Bauhaus and relocation to Paris
1937 57 works by Kandinsky are seized from German museums, 14 works shown at the propaganda exhibition “Entartete Kunst” (Degenerate art)
13.12.1944 Death in Paris