Vasily Kandinsky, a Colorful Life: The Collection of the Lenbachhaus, Munich. - book reviews

The diverse issues surrounding Kandinsky's development of abstraction and his subsequent commitment to it begin to become evident in this volume and the 1989 one on the Blaue Reiter works in the Lenbachhaus, edited by Armin Zweite (then director of the collection).(9) By presenting reproductions of so many studies, major oils, and contemporaneous works, the visual richness--in addition to the textual analysis--of these books provides a clear indication to students and scholars that Kandinsky's struggle to develop an abstract style was a complex process influenced by many sources and events. As scholars continue to explore the relationship between Kandinsky's Russian, German, and French backgrounds and his interests in folklore, anarchism, occultism, and internationalism, they must absorb the discipline's hard-fought awareness of the multiplicity of meaning. Only then will they be able to expand our comprehension of the multivalent forces contributing to the emergence of a style and concept that has dominated our perception of painting for much of this century.

Notes

(1.) The major exception to Hahl-Koch's diatribes against other scholars is her attitude toward her mentor, the former director of the LenbachLaus, H. K. Roethel, whom she reveres.

(2.) Christian Derouet and Jessica Boissel, eds., Kandinsky: Oeurres de Vassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) (Paris: Centre national d'art et de culture Georges Pompidou, 1984).

(3.) In both the note and in the bibliography the Los Angeles catalogue is mistakenly referred to as On the Spintual in Art, the title of Kandinsky's major manifesto.

(4.) See Peg Weiss, Kandinsky in Munich: The Formative Jugendstil Years (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979).

(5.) See the English translation in Kenneth C. Lindsay and Peter Vergo, eds., Kandinsky: Complete Writings on Art (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1982),1:143,145.

(6.) The question of Theosophical influence on Kandinsky has been much debated by Kandinsky scholars. For a discussion of the impact of Theosophy on Kandinsky's development of abstraction, see R.-C. W. Long, Kandinsky: The Development of an Abstract Style (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980), esp. 13-41.

(7.) For discussion of Kandinsky's syncretic use of this concept, see R.-C. W. Long, "Kandinsky's Vision of 1 topia as a Garden of Love," Art Journal 43 (Spring 1983): 50-60. Although Weiss maintains that Kandinsky used Christian themes as well as folkloric ones, she includes few references to Kandinsky's major works that have religious titles and/or themes and she does not explain why Kandinsky based so many of these works on folk depictions of the Apocalypse.

(8.) Composition 6 had never been exhibited in this country and Composition 7 had been exhibited in the United States once before, in 1966.

(9.) See Armin Zweite, ea., The Blue Rider in the LenbachEaus, Munich (Munich: Prestel-Verlag, 1989).

ROSE-CAROL WASHTON LONG is professor and chair of the Ph.D. program in art history at the CUNY Graduate School. Her most recent publication is German Expressionism: Documents (University of California Press, 1995).

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