"Painting with Troika," Wassily Kandinsky, 1911.

I've talked about Kandinsky before. This is an intriguing canvas for him; it's not entirely just abstract forms. This time it's got recognizable forms but used in unusual ways. On the right we see a troika, a cart pulled by three horses. It seems to be on a causeway with crashing waves. Maybe. Is that blue behind it to be an out-of-perspective body of water?

And what of the three figures, seemingly musicians, off to the left? What is their role?

Kandinsky was a founder of an art group called Blaue Reiter (Blue Rider) so I'm guessing the cart may be referring to that, at least. They championed the spontaneous and intuitive, which may be just the point of this canvas: Wassily being spontaneous and intuitive. A good example of how something may not make sense to everyone, but it makes sense to you.

From the Art Institute of Chicago.

#Art #WassilyKandinsky #AbstractArt #BlueRider #MountainOrArtichoke.

‘They created the modern art we know and love today’ - Natalia Sidlina 🎨

In this film, curator Natalia Sidlina and art historian Dorothy Price explain how the Blue Rider group wanted to explore the emotional and spiritual dimensions of art, emphasising abstraction, symbolism and expressive mark-making.

There’s not long left to see #Expressionists at Tate Modern. Until 20 October 2024. https://bit.ly/3I2N9J1

Tate
@tate #art #BlueRider