36 days - 8

Another day another tribute to modernism. I have found that the modernist era displays a plethora of numerically represented art and design due to the fundamentalism of the time. Russian constructivist Wassily Kandinsky displayed a utopian perspective as part of the Russain Avant-garde of the 1920s. As a defining characteristic of constructivism, he used rigidly geometric forms that overlapped constantly on a two-dimensional plane but his flagrant expressionism was against much of his typically constructivist peers and gave him particular poignance during the Bauhaus epoch. 

"Composition 8 ( Komposition 8 )

In 1922 Kandinsky joined the faculty of the Weimar Bauhaus, where he discovered a more sympathetic environment in which to pursue his art. Originally premised on a Germanic, expressionistic approach to artmaking, the Bauhaus aesthetic came to reflect Constructivist concerns and styles, which by the mid-1920s had become international in scope. While there, Kandinsky furthered his investigations into the correspondence between colors and forms and their psychological and spiritual effects. In Composition 8, the colorful, interactive geometric forms create a pulsating surface that is alternately dynamic and calm, aggressive and quiet. The importance of circles in this painting prefigures the dominant role they would play in many subsequent works, culminating in his cosmic and harmonious image Several Circles. “The circle,” claimed Kandinsky, “is the synthesis of the greatest oppositions. It combines the concentric and the eccentric in a single form and in equilibrium. Of the three primary forms, it points most clearly to the fourth dimension.”

The strong emphasis on colliding geometries especially the circular forms makes Composition 8 and much of Kandinsky's work perfect for the composition of the number 8. So I got sketching both the basic forms of the two circles and some extra embellishments that were set to emanate from a certain point in the composition. The work was quite illustrative which was a nice change of pace for me. 

The final composition featured a colour burn filter that helped the colours picked directly was Kandinsky's original become more intense and appear as though the whole piece was on some aged canvas with a slight radial gradient for added depth. The somewhat Scifi spheres wrapped in a kind of tenticle were a personal touch as my own interpretation of the utopianist style and geometries collide all over the place.

Text:

"8 is for ‘Composition 8’ - a tribute to the 1923 oil painting by Russian constructivist Vasily Kandinsky. The prominent geometries are offset by dynamic thinner lines that radiate out from given points. The juxtaposition between hazy and sharp forms creates a pulsating visual tempo."

The post was very well received due to a well aimed set of tags including #bauhaus where I featured on the front page for a while, making this my most popular post to date.