VASSILI KANDINSKY AND GEOMETRY IN ARTS PART 1

Whenever the relationship between geometry and art is discussed, it is impossible not to mention the master Kadinsky. He was a Russian painter considered the main precursor of abstraction in geometry. He was born into an upper-middle-class family and during his childhood and youth lived between the big city of Moscow and Odessa. Before devoting his life to art, he studied law and economics and was even appointed a university professor, but decided to abandon this profession to focus entirely on what he really liked. It is with Kadinsky that we find the first brushstrokes of geometric abstraction in art, around 1910.

The first time he created an abstract watercolour was with the work "Composition VII", in which he conveyed his emotions by making use of spontaneous and random patches of colour. When we are talking about a composition we must be aware that we are not referring to a painting that has been made according to a plan, but to an improvisation based on impulses.

After the outbreak of the First World War, Kadinsky returned to the city of Moscow, where he had been born, and his previous style, which was expressive abstract, was influenced by the artistic movements of the Russian avant-garde. This was the time when there was a great emphasis on geometric forms, where we can observe the influence of other Russian artists such as Kazimir Malevich and Aleksandr Rodchenko. He progressively adopted aspects of Constructivism and Suprematism, reflected in superimposed plans and very clearly delineated forms, but always expressing himself again in abstract forms.

Years later, in 1922, he joined the Weimar faculty and carried out various investigations into the theories of colour from different points of view, thus arriving at the essence of colour. In fact, he attached so much importance to the application of colour that he even explored the relationship between colour and sound. All this with the aim and intention of being able to produce a work of art similar to the way a musician might compose a song.

We must highlight "Point and line on plane" (1926), a publication in which the relationship between colours and shapes is explored in-depth and correspondence is established between colours and geometric shapes according to their angles.  Below is a diagram that can serve as a reference.