Improvisation 27 (Garden of Love II) by Wassily Kandinsky (also spelled Vasily) is an expressive abstract that is independent of forms and lines. It depicts three sets of embracing couples surrounded by serpentine shapes.
One of the embracing couples is to the left of the sun in the center of the painting. A green and red pair are positioned on top of the sun.
The bottom right, a black figure is on top of a white figure. The painting’s subject is indicated in the subtitle “Garden of Love II,” which is a reference to biblical Eden.
This painting conforms with Kandinsky’s treatise, “Concerning the Spiritual in Art.” In which he theorized a new form of artistic expression that favored emotional and spiritual ideals, using abstract shapes and color symbolism to evoke an inner world.
Music was an essential catalyst for early conceptual art, and Kandinsky used musical terms to identify his works. He called his spontaneous paintings “improvisations” and described elaborate works as “compositions.”
In many of Kandinsky’s works, the identification of the forms and the masses present on the canvas require more sophisticated analysis.
The inner reality of art requires a more profound observation. It involves the study of the relationship between all the elements and their harmony.
Vasily Kandinsky
Wassily Kandinsky (Vasíliy Vasílʹevich Kandínskiy) is credited with painting one of the first recognized purely abstract works.
Born in Moscow, he studying law and economics and began painting studies at the age of 30.
Kandinsky was unsympathetic to the official theories on art in Communist Moscow and moved to Germany in 1920.
There, he taught at the Bauhaus school of art and architecture from 1922 until the Nazis closed it in 1933.
He then moved to France, where he lived for the rest of his life, becoming a French citizen in 1939 and producing some of his most prominent art.
Improvisation 27 (Garden of Love II)
- Title: Improvisation 27 (Garden of Love II)
- Artist: Vasily Kandinsky or Wassily Kandinsky
- Created: 1913
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Dimensions: 47.3 × 55.2 in (120.3 × 140.3 cm)
- Museum: Metropolitan Museum of Art – MET
Wassily Kandinsky
- Name: Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky
- Russian: Vasily Vasilyevich Kandinsky
- Russian:: Васи́лий Васи́льевич Канди́нский
- Born: 1866 – Moscow, Russian Empire
- Died: 1944 (aged 77) – Neuilly-sur-Seine, France
- Nationality: Russian, later French
- Movement: Expressionism; abstract art
- Notable work:
- Blue Painting
- Improvisation 28 (2nd version)
- Improvisation 27 (Garden of Love II)
- Landscape with Factory Chimney
- Composition VI
- Composition 8
The Creativity of Wassily Kandinsky in Three Key Masterworks
MET European Paintings Collection
- “Pygmalion and Galatea” by Jean-Léon
- “Saint Jerome as Scholar” by El Greco
- “Portrait of Juan de Pareja” by Diego Velázquez
- “Camille Monet on a Garden Bench” by Claude Monet
- “View of Toledo” by El Greco
- “The Musicians” by Caravaggio
- “The Death of Socrates” by Jacques-Louis David
- “The Harvesters” by Pieter Bruegel the Elder
- “Young Woman Drawing” by Marie-Denise Villers
- “The Grand Canal, Venice” by J. M. W. Turner
- “The Houses of Parliament (Effect of Fog)” by Claude Monet
- “Madame Cézanne in a Red Dress” by Paul Cézanne
MET Modern and Contemporary Art Collection
- “Reclining Nude” by Amedeo Modigliani
- “Improvisation 27 (Garden of Love II)” by Wassily Kandinsky
- “Jeanne Hébuterne” by Amedeo Modigliani
- “The Card Players” by Paul Cézanne
- “Bathers” by Paul Cézanne
MET American Wing Collection
- “Washington Crossing the Delaware” by Emanuel Leutze
- “Portrait of Madame X” by John Singer Sargent
- “Mother and Child” by Mary Cassatt
- “Fur Traders Descending the Missouri” by George Caleb Bingham
- “The Gulf Stream” by Winslow Homer
Wassily Kandinsky: 6 Minute Art History Video
Wassily Kandinsky Quotes
~~~
“The artist must train not only his eye but also his soul.”
~~~
“Color is a means of exerting direct influence on the soul.”
~~~
“That is beautiful, which is produced by the inner need, which springs from the soul.”
~~~
“There is no must in art because art is free.”
~~~
“Music is the ultimate teacher.”
~~~
‘The more abstract is form, the more clear and direct it’s appeal.”
~~~
“The arts are encroaching one upon another, and from the proper use of this encroachment will raise the art that is truly monumental.”
~~~
“That is beautiful, which springs from an inner need, which springs from the soul.”
~~~
“Color provokes a psychic vibration. Color hides a power still unknown but real, which acts on every part of the human body.”
~~~
“Blue is the typical heavenly color. The ultimate feeling it creates is one of rest. When it sinks to almost black, it echos grief that is hardly human.”
~~~
“Color is a power which directly influences the soul.”
~~~
“Everything starts from a dot.”
~~~
“The artist must train not only his eye but also his soul.”
– Wassily Kandinsky
~~~
Photo Credit 1) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Popular this Week
Sponsor your Favorite Page SEARCH Search for: Search Follow UsJoin – The JOM Membership Program
Sponsor a Masterpiece with YOUR NAME CHOICE for $5
Share this:
- Tweet
