2nd German Expressionism movement 1911 to 1914 Munich, Germany Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider) Cover of Der Blaue Reiter almanac, c.1912

Der Blaue Reiter The spiritual in art The spiritual and symbolic associations of color The connection between visual art and music Contemporary art, primitive and folk art, children's paintings Exhibitions touring Germany in 1911 and 1912  Wassily Kandinsky, On the Spiritual in Art ,1911 the spiritual life of humanity as a large triangle similar to a pyramid

Wassily Kandinsky Franz Marc August Macke Paul Klee Gabriele Münter Albert Bloch Natalia Goncharova Marianne von Werefkin Lyonel Feininger Arnold Schoenberg

Wassily Kandinsky Der Blaue Reiter,1903

Wassily Kandinsky Composition IV o/c 1911 62 7/8 x 98 5/8

Franz Marc Blue Horse I o/c 1911 112.5 x 84.5 cm The fate of the animals o/c 1913 196 x 266 cm 

August Macke Arabian Café o/c 1914 27 x 21,8 cm

Wassily Kandinsky NON-OBJECTIVE Kandinsky Winter 1914 Kandinsky stressed the impact of color and its association with music, explaining that "color is a means of exerting direct influence upon the soul. Color is a keyboard. The eye is the hammer. The soul is the piano, with its many strings.“ MoMA wall text Kandinsky Winter 1914

During WWI Non-representational abstraction The Russian Revolution and Suprematism Belief in an art which expresses a reality beyond the material, a consciousness like that of a meditative state in which ordinary reality is transcended; eastern and Buddhist influences, the Theosophical Society (Kandinsky, Malevich, Mondrian, Duchamp, Pollock, Rothko, etc)

The Russian Avant Garde Suprematism (1913-1918) “Suprematism is the rediscovery of pure art that, in the course of time, had become obscured by the accumulation of 'things‘.” Kasimir Malevich, The Non-Objective World Geometric forms as paradigms of spiritual evolution sacred geometry “Under Suprematism I understand the supremacy of pure feeling in creative art. To the Suprematist the visual phenomena of the objective world are, in themselves, meaningless; the significant thing is feeling, as such, quite apart from the environment in which it is called forth.” http://images.google.pt/imgres?imgurl=http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/images/ht/ht_geab_2.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/geab/hd_geab.htm&usg=__7sFoWKfYHmtLM0asa08NCdd1C0M=&h=72&w=72&sz=6&hl=pt-PT&start=128&um=1&tbnid=NPYyk3e_In5SpM:&tbnh=69&tbnw=69&prev=/images%3Fq%3Drodchenko,%2Byellow%2Bcomposition%26ndsp%3D18%26hl%3Dpt-PT%26sa%3DN%26start%3D126%26um%3D1

What artists found appealing about the various arcane religious and philosophical systems was their underlying premise that the spiritual world is governed by laws that mirror natural laws and that can be expressed in symbols. The idea is akin to Ralph Waldo Emerson’s notion that every appearance in nature corresponds to some state of mind. Geometric forms are thus paradigms of spiritual evolution. The spiritual world, like the natural world, is charged with energy, producing cosmic vibrations and human auras. The spiritual principles that intrigued certain artists included synesthesia, the overlap between the senses by which a painting can simulate music; duality, the idea that the cosmos reflects an underlying principle of yin and yang; and so-called "sacred geometry," the belief that, as Plato put it, "God geometricizes." Spirituality in Abstract Art by Pamela Schaeffer on the subject of the exhibition "The Spiritual in Art: Abstract Painting 1890-1985”.

Kazimir Malevich The Woodcutter, 1912 Morning in the Village after Snowstorm, 1912

Malevich, Cow and Violin, 1913 Malevich, Composition with Mona Lisa, 1913

Suprematism The artist constructs a new symbol with his brush. This symbol is not a recognizable form of anything that is already finished, already made, or already existent in the world — it is a symbol of a new world, which is being built upon and which exists by the way of the people. El Lissitzky

Malevich Kazimir Black Square 1913, o/c, 31 x 31 From Cubism to Suprematism http://www.moodbook.com/history/modernism/malevich-black-square.html "the supremacy of pure feeling" "The square = feeling, the white field = the void beyond this feeling."

Kazimir Malevich The Black Circle 1913, 41 x 41” 16

Malevich Kazimir 31 3/16x31 5/16" Black Square , 1915 o/c 31

Malevich Kazimir Suprematist Painting: Eight Red Rectangles o/c, 1915, 22 x 19” 18

Black Square and Red Square, 1915 Kazimir Malevich Suprematist Composition. 1915 Black Square and Red Square, 1915

Kasimir Malevich Supremus No. 56 1916, o/c, 31 x 28 “ Suprematist Composition. 1916

Kazimir Malevich Suprematist Composition: White on White, 1918, o/c, 31 x 31”

Malevich, 0.10. Last Futurist Exhibition (Black Square), 1915 http://www.moodbook.com/history/modernism/malevich-black-square.html

© 2006, State Russian Museum, St Petersburg Kasimir Malevich lying in state in his Leningrad apartment (17-18 May 1935) © 2006, State Russian Museum, St Petersburg

Malevich, Black Square , 1915

Kasimir Malevich, Self-Portrait. 1933.

Art of the Revolution (1917-21) Between the Wars Russian Abstraction Art of the Revolution (1917-21) Constructivism Constructivism was created by Malevich and Tatlin four years before the Russian revolution. Two further figures are Rodchenko and Popova. Also Laszlo Moholy-Nagy (he constructed 3D objects). They all believed in a revolution in art but their hopes were dashed in 1921. The great subjects are the everyday. Realistic but not naturalistic. Tatlin visited Picasso's studio in Paris. Mondrian, Kandinsky and Tatlin did take the step Picasso never took into complete abstraction. Transience, ephemerality. Cubist collage is ephemeral. Tatlin was deliberately creating works that would not last. Constructivists thought any reference to the real world was a distraction. Tatlin was sculpting space not objects. He had purely formal concerns. Most works of art create an art space by using a pillar or a frame. In a 1915 exhibition Malevich put his work in a corner, displacement out of the traditional spaces of art. The works are revolutionary with respect to traditional Russian art. Popova was determinately abstract. Dominance of a single colour, lack of modelling, link to collage. Popova and Rodchenko produced works based on engineering - pencil, ruler and compass. They wanted to remove the hand of the artist and its subjectivity, so their work is objective and "cool". The events of 1917 in the social field were forecast by the revolution in art in 1313 - Tatlin. After the revolution Rodchenko took on a Government role. Art would move out of the museum to the people and into industry. They would create prototypes for industrial design and thus take on a utilitarian role. In 1918 some artists started to call themselves constructors rather than artist. Their interest in the industrial reminds us of Donald Judd and his use of industrial materials. Society of Young Artists exhibition - they wanted to dissociate themselves from art. "Achieving the materialist construction of communist objects". They thought they would help produce useful goods. First working group of Constructivists of 1921. His classic work is Oval Hanging Construction. Moholy "Narj". Thought he was producing art (others were ambivalent – they called themselves artisans, engineers, and felt they were doing useful design and research work). He went to Moscow not Paris. Lenin set by NARCOMPROS, the Peoples Commissariate for Education. Led to Tatlin's monument to the Third International. Architecture. Glass and steel. Inner part revolve once a year, month, day. Twice the height of the Empire State building. Also Gabo and his brother Pevsner made mobiles. They wrote the Realistic Manifesto. "War as a cleansing event". New clampdown on the avant guard started in 1921, Gabo and Pevsner left in 1923. Artists had to find a new living with the loss of the middle class. Their work was put to new uses, advertising and propaganda. Lenin died in 1924. Stalin took over and only wanted propaganda. Constructivism had a great influence on Mondrian

Vladimir Tatlin Relief c. 1914 found objects Metal and leather on wood  24 3/4 x 20 7/8 in. 

Vladimir Tatlin Relief, 1914 Corner Counter Relief, 1915 Found objects

Model for Monument to the Third International, 1919-20 Tatlin Model for Monument to the Third International, 1919-20

Tatlin, Model for Monument to the Third International, 1919-20

towering symbol of modernity iron, glass and steel towering symbol of modernity The tower's main form was a twin helix which spiraled up to 400 m in height, which visitors would be transported around with the aid of various mechanical devices. The main framework would contain three enormous rotating geometric structures. At the base of the structure was a cube which was designed as a venue for lectures, conferences and congress meetings, and would complete a rotation in the span of one year. In the centre of the structure was a cone, housing executive activities and completing a rotation once a month. The topmost one, a cylinder, was to house an information centre, issuing news bulletins and manifestos via telegraph, radio and loudspeaker, and would complete a rotation once a day. There were also plans to install a gigantic open-air screen on the cylinder, and a further projector which would be able to cast messages across the clouds on any overcast day

Aleksandr Rodchenko , Compass and Ruler Drawing 2 (1914-15)

Non-Objective Painting: Black on Black Date: 1918 Aleksandr Rodchenko Non-Objective Painting: Black on Black Date: 1918 o/c, 32 1/4 x 31 1/4"

Oval Hanging Construction Number 12 Aleksandr Rodchenko Oval Hanging Construction Number 12 ca. 1920 Plywood, open construction partially painted with aluminum paint, and wire 24 x 33 x 18 1/2 in.

Rodchenko, Hanging Construction, c.1920

Aleksandr Rodchenko Triptych: Pure Colors: Red, Yellow, Blue, 1921

Aleksandr Rodchenko Gouache on paper 33 x 20" Advertisment for cooking oil, 1923 “Attention working masses Three times cheaper than butter! More nutritious than other oils! Nowhere else as at Mossel'prom.” Box for “Our Industry” caramels from Mossel’prom, 1923

Aleksandr Rodchenko Advertisement for cookies from the Krasnyi Oktiabr' (Red October) factory 1923 Gouache on paper 32 x 21 3/4" I eat cookies from the Krasnyi Oktiabr' factory, formerly Einem. I don't buy anywhere except at Mossel'prom.

Aleksandr Rodchenko Poster for the Propaganda of the Book

El Lissitzky Proun, Prounen “Design for the confirmation of the new” “The goal-oriented creation” (das zielbewußte Schaffen) Abstraction, art for the masses (the universal language) "the station where one changes from painting to architecture." shifting axes and multiple perspectives Influence on De Stijl, Bauhaus, and 20th century graphic design Proun, 1920 Gouache and watercolor on paper, 15 x 15”

El Lissitzky Proun, 1925 Proun, 1920 distemper, tempera, varnish and pencil on canvas Proun, 1920

El Lissitzky The Constructor, Self Portrait, 1925 self-portrait photomontage

El Lissitzky, Beat The Whites With The Red Wedge lithograph poster for the political department of the western front, 1920

Klinom krasnim meaning: "With Red Wedge" Red is left: political color and position of communists White was a standard color of anti-revolutionary forces Circle was s supremtists symbol for unchangeable Red was a standard symbol of revolution Edge was asupremtist symbol of something new Bey Belych meaning: "Beat Whites" White is right: political color and position of anti-revolutionaries Painted during the Civil War in Russia (1917-1921)  between Reds and Whites

El Lissitzky Proun room “The image is not a painting, but a structure around which we must circle, looking at it from all sides, peering down from above, investigating from below.” Proun room The Great Berlin Art Exhibition 1923 “The goal-oriented creation” (the first installation, viewer as part of the work)

Kandinsky, 1920’3 & 30’s

Wassily Kandinsky Several Circles (Einige Kreise), 1926. Oil on canvas, 55” x 55”. Geometric purity v. textured background Molecular world and solar systems

http://www.absolutearts.com/artsnews/2003/01/20/30672.html