| Improvisation No. 30 (Cannons) | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Artist | Vasily Kandinsky |
| Year | 1911-1913 |
| Medium | Oil on Canvas |
| Movement | Abstract Impressionism |
| Dimensions | 111 cm× 111.3 cm(44 in× 43.8 in) |
| Location | The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago |
Improvisation No. 30 (Cannons) is an oil painting executed between 1911 and 1913 by the abstract painter Vasily Kandinsky. The work was donated by the Chicago lawyer Arthur Jerome Eddy to the Art Institute of Chicago, in whose permanent collection it still remains. [1] [2] [3]
The artwork, which was painted in Germany in the years leading up to World War I, depicts a world on the verge of war and calamity. The cannons of the title can be readily discerned, as well as buildings and a small group of people (at left).
Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky was a Russian painter and art theorist. Kandinsky is generally credited as one of the pioneers of abstraction in western art. Born in Moscow, he spent his childhood in Odesa, where he graduated from Odesa Art School. He enrolled at the University of Moscow, studying law and economics. Successful in his profession—he was offered a professorship at the University of Dorpat —Kandinsky began painting studies at the age of 30.
Modern art includes artistic work produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the styles and philosophies of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the traditions of the past have been thrown aside in a spirit of experimentation. Modern artists experimented with new ways of seeing and with fresh ideas about the nature of materials and functions of art. A tendency away from the narrative, which was characteristic of the traditional arts, toward abstraction is characteristic of much modern art. More recent artistic production is often called contemporary art or postmodern art.
Abstract art uses visual language of shape, form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world.
Der Blaue Reiter is a designation by Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc for their exhibition and publication activities, in which both artists acted as sole editors in the almanac of the same name, first published in mid-May 1912. The editorial team organized two exhibitions in Munich in 1911 and 1912 to demonstrate their art-theoretical ideas based on the works of art exhibited. Traveling exhibitions in German and other European cities followed. The Blue Rider disbanded at the start of World War I in 1914.
Gabriele Münter was a German expressionist painter who was at the forefront of the Munich avant-garde in the early 20th century. She studied and lived with the painter Wassily Kandinsky and was a founding member of the expressionist group Der Blaue Reiter.
Raymond Jonson, was an American-born Modernist painter known for his paintings of the American Southwest. Born Carl Raymond Johnson, he originally signed his paintings C. Raymond Johnson, but later used Raymond Jonson, dropping the first initial and reverting to a more traditional spelling of his last name.
5x5=25 was a two-part abstract art exhibition held in September–October 1921 in Moscow. The five artists whose work was shown were Aleksandra Ekster, Lyubov Popova, Alexander Rodchenko, Varvara Stepanova and Alexander Vesnin. They presented highly abstracted, geometric work that rejected expressionist forms of painting common before the World War I and claimed to be the "end" or "death" of art.
Alexander Alexeyevich Shenshin was a Russian composer.
Arthur Jerome Eddy was an American lawyer, author, art collector, and a prominent member of the first generation of American Modern art collectors. His book Cubists and Post-Impressionism was the first American book promoting these new art movements and the work of Wassily Kandinsky. Eddy's collection was distinguished by the inclusion of German expressionists and Wassily Kandinsky.
Composition VII is an abstract oil painting executed in 1913 by Wassily Kandinsky, a Russian-born painter. It is in the collection of the Tretyakov Gallery, in Moscow. Art historians have concluded that the work is a combination of the themes of Resurrection, Judgment Day, the Flood and the Garden of Eden.
Das Bunte Leben is a 1907 tempera painting by Russian artist Wassily Kandinsky.
Laxmi Prasad Sihare was an Indian civil service officer, curator, art writer and the director-general of the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA). It was during his directorship, an art exhibition on Auguste Rodin was organized by the museum.
Modern Theosophy has had considerable influence on the work of visual artists, particularly painters. Artists such as Wassily Kandinsky, Piet Mondrian, and Luigi Russolo chose Theosophy as the main ideological and philosophical basis of their work.
The Blue Rider is an oil painting executed in Bavaria in 1903 by the Russian emigré artist Wassily Kandinsky. It is now held in a private collection in Zurich, and shares its name with the art movement he would co-found with Franz Marc in the early 1910s.
Composition X is an abstract oil painting executed in 1939 by the artist Wassily Kandinsky, a Russian-born émigré then living near Paris. It is in the collection of the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, in Düsseldorf.
Landscape with Red Spots was the name given to each of two successive oil paintings produced in Bavaria in 1913 by the Russian émigré painter Wassily Kandinsky. The first is now in the Museum Folkwang, in Essen, Germany. The second, known as Landscape with Red Spots, No 2, is in the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, in Venice.
Upward is an oil on cardboard painting created in 1929 by the Russian abstract painter Wassily Kandinsky. Painted at a time when Kandinsky was teaching art at the Bauhaus in Dessau, Germany, it now forms part of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in the Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, Venice, Italy.
Composition VI is a 1913 oil painting on canvas by the Russian artist Wassily Kandinsky, now in the Hermitage Museum, in Saint Petersburg.
Erster Deutscher Herbstsalon was the title of an art exhibition that was organized in 1913 by Herwarth Walden in Berlin.
Media related to Improvisation No. 30 (Cannons) - Wassily Kandinsky at Wikimedia Commons  | This article about a twentieth-century painting is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |