Page 23 - Studio International - January 1967

Opposite Moscow Lady 1912
Dull day—Kochel am See 1902 Watercolour
Oil on cardboard 12 3/8 x 11 in.
9+ x 13 in.

played major roles in forming Kandinsky's anti- Those who knew him also stress Kandinsky's Russian-
materialist view of the world.4 This in turn convinced ness. It was in fact something more than this: an
him that the 'reality' depicted in conventional art was orientalism often difficult for a European to comprehend.
outdated and meaningless. If the concept of electricity There was a Mongolian cast to his eyes, he was fond of
in constant movement was to replace the idea of matter, boasting that one of his great-grandmothers had been a
why should not colour-sound and line-rhythm do away Mongolian princess and that his father had Siberian
with the material servitude of the represented object? To origins. With the exception of the years between 1914
Kandinsky the splitting of the atom was as significant and 1922, during which he was a leading figure in the
`as the destruction of the world... all science seemed to Revolutionary art establishment, Kandinsky stayed
me to have been laid waste: its most vital concept abroad from the time he was thirty, and in 1922 after
turned out to be an idiocy, a mistake perpetrated by difficulties with Soviet officials lost his nationality alto-
learned men'.5 gether, but he in no way became a European completely.6
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