CCBB Educativo
Daniela Chindler Ilustraçþes Lula Palomanes
I was born far away from Brazil, in Russia, in 1866,
almost two centuries ago!
I’m a Muscovite, just like my mommy. “Muscovite” may sound like a funny word, but that’s how we call someone who’s born in Moscow. My grand grandmother was a princess (can you believe it?) from Mongolia, a frontier country. Some people told me she was really pretty. Daddy was born in a village in Siberia, close to the border between the Russian and Chinese Empires. Maybe that’s why he became a successful tea merchant. It’s said that once, in the city of Xian, the Emperor Shen-nong was resting under a tree when some leaves fell on his cup of hot water and colored the liquid chestnut brown. When he tasted it, he found out it had a pleasant taste, so he taught the recipe to his subjects. And that’s how, almost three thousand years ago, this Chinese sovereign invented the tea that daddy sells today.
I was still very little when we moved to the city of Odessa, in Ukraine, a big harbor on the margins of the Black Sea. I was only five when my parents separated, then I went to live with my dear aunt Elizaveta.
She taught me music, German and told me many stories.
I used to shiver with the pretty girl Vassilissa tale, because her evil stepmother sent her to the house of the witch Baba Yagรก. But I also used to have a hard laugh with the story of the runaway pancake that went rolling around so no one would eat it.
And I though it was really curious about the legend of how the Matrioska... You probably have seen it, it's that doll that has one doll inside, and then another doll inside and another one, which one smaller than the one before.
In Odessa I've had piano and cello classes. Mommy and daddy loved music, just like me. I also studied drawing and risked myself with inks, brushes and canvas during my youth. I dreamed about becoming a painter and loved to paint on every thing, but I though that art was luxe and didn't face it as a profession. That’s why I went to study economy and law at university. And my live moved on…
At 23, I took part on an expedition to the Province of Vologda, northern Russia. I couldn’t have figured out that this trip would be a turning point to me. The blast of colors on the clothing and in the furniture of the peasants made me feel like walking inside a live painting. So not to forget anything, I started a sketchbook with drawings of architectural ornaments and also objects like spoons, baskets and chests. I wrote songs and stories that I heard at the villages as well. The fairy tales they told me there reminded me of my aunty. At that time, I started to collect wooden toys, spinning wheels and luboks – textile prints with peasants, religious scenes and animals like snakes and owls.
By then I was certain my future was settled: I would become a Law Teacher. But one morning, after I visited an exhibition from the French Impressionists’ painters in Moscow, everything changed. The art critics weren’t moved, they said the impressionist paintings were “mere blurs of paint over a canvas”. Whoa! They didn’t understand that every stroke of the brush needed to be fast enough to catch the exact light of each moment, and that’s why the shapes seem to be fading away slowly, highlighting the colors.
No, of course it wasn’t just paint blots. During the course of the seasons, Monet, for example, who liked to paint in open air, spent days in the field, from dusk ‘til the break of dawn, painting haystacks. For him, the light was something magical that had the power to transform things. A haystack under the cold light of winter dawn is definitely not the same haystack on a hot summer afternoon.
Monet, like other impressionists, studied and comprehended the variation of light in colors. That morning, at the exhibition, seeing a haystack painted by Monet, I understood that art didn’t have to limit itself to copying nature.
A few days later, I watched a Wagner’s opera, at the Moscow Royal Theater. The music made me think of Moscow’s sunset, when the colors fire up one after the other, just before transforming the city in a red stain that sounds like the final chord of an enormous orchestra. That’s when I realized that paintings are capable of revealing feelings, just like music.
My life, at this point, would take another turn:
I would be a painter!
At 30 years old, I packed my things and moved to Germany, because I wanted to dedicate myself to study painting. The German king Ludwig I had opened the first state public museums. Many Russians artists went to Munich, city which lies between Moscow and Paris. There were many galleries in the city, what was great for those who needed places to exhibit their work. Thankfully I didn’t have to worry about paying the bills. I inherited a palace in Moscow (pretty lucky, right?) and received the rent money of several apartments.
At the first school I enrolled, I had to take figure drawing lessons, having people posing, standing still right before us. However I didn’t want to make a painting that was a reproduction of reality, I wanted it to “speak out” the painter’s feelings and that whomever looked at it could also find hidden feelings inside them. So I skipped classes and studied oil painting in open air. I kept thinking about music. It is immaterial, I mean, we cannot touch it, see it, we only acknowledge its vibrations and what it makes us feel.
It seemed as if I was in a quest for the colored sound. That’s why I wrote this in the book Concerning the Spiritual in Art: the color is a way to wield direct impact over the soul. The color is the key; the eye, the hammer. The soul, the thousand chords instrument. And what does the artist do? He is the hand that, by picking the colors, by touching this or that key, such the keys of a piano, manages to make the soul vibrate. The human soul, when touched at it’s most sensitive spot, responds.
It was in Munich that I watched a concert from the composer Arnold Schönberg. A bit complicated to read his name, isn’t it?
The music from this concert
affected me. That was it! On the next day, I started drawing.
At first, I sketched the concert room in perspective. You could easily see the pianist, the Grand piano, the audience and the chandelier of the hall. On the second sketch, I kept the references to the real objects, like the musician at the piano, the audience, the chandeliers, but some figures were already diluted. I took notes in German for the colors orientation; that word gelb, at the corner, means “yellow”. I also pointed out the white and the black colors.
After my studies, I made an oil painting that I entitled Impression III (Concert). I didn’t intend to paint what I was seeing, neither to translate to an image the music I was hearing. What I painted was the impression of what the concert made me feel. The color, for me, is a way of reaching the soul. Unfortunately, Schönberg wasn’t at the exhibition, but I sent him a present through mail: a folder of engraving prints. Schönberg also painted, and like that, a lasting friendship took place. After our first meeting I made a series of woodcut prints with poems that I called Sounds – on those there were knights, dragons, angels and cities over hills.
The figures did not disappear suddenly from my paintings. It was only slowly that the geometrical shapes and colors took over my canvas.
One day, it’s been a while now, Saint George appeared on a horseback in my drawings, where maybe he might stay forever. Sometimes it’s easy to see the horseman, other times he is rather hidden.
Since the times of the czar Yaroslav – the Wise, the Russian people venerate Saint George. He is the holy patron of the princes, and his image appears on the shield and on the coin of Moscow. We regard him as a brave warrior, defender of our lands, protector of the peasants. Inside many households we find images of George the knight killing a dragon with his spear; it’s the victory of good and faith over the strengths of evil.
On the painting "Saint George", I tell a story of this saint in rhythm and color.
Saint George, the dragon, the horse and the battle are represented through the energy of the brush movement, which is expressed by color splotches, and by a long triangle that reaches the bottom of the composition. Among the color splotches, one can still find the princess and the horseman defeating the dragon.
However, just like melodies in a song, what I was searching for were that the color arrangements and contrasts could make the viewer dive within his own world of passions and fears.
There were other artists that, like me, thought that painting shouldn’t bother with reproducing the perfect shape of what exists. Since the Greeks, back on the Classical antiquity, the artists intended to reproduce nature.There were other artists that, as me, though that painting should not be concerned with reproducing the perfect shape of what exists. Since the Greeks, back there on the antiquity, the artists tried to reproduce the nature.
But not us!
We didn’t want to be guided by what is material,
we craved and needed to approach the spiritual world.
Thus the Blue Rider Group emerged. The German painter Franz Marc founded the group with me. Marc loved to paint horses, and I loved the color blue. I feel that the deeper the blue is, more fiercely it calls men to infinity. The blue is the perfect color to lead us to the spiritual world. Inside the Blue Rider group there was also the Swiss painter Paul Klee and my dear friend the composer and painter Schönberg. Klee, by the way, would became another lifetime friend of mine, since we shared similar ideas concerning art. He used to say that color possessed him; that’s why he didn’t need to pursue it, for he knew it was attached to him forever… Color and him became one. We organized two exhibitions and published one almanac, blending, or rather joining our paintings to tribal pieces, like sculptures from Easter Island and needlework from Alaska. We would not search for the perfect drawing, neither for an accurate copy. We believed that the answers for this spiritual world we were trying to reach could also reside in intuitive doodles made by child or in a demon mask from Sri Lanka, for example. The Blue Rider was meant to be our warrior and curator that would arise to set us free. Then, in 1914, the First World War began. Marc, the horse painter, died on a battlefield that wasn’t spiritual at all. And I came back to Russia, but my rider remained inside me.
In Russia, it was a time of changes. The one who ruled the country was the emperor, which we called Czar. The majority of the population were of peasants that needed to pay high taxes to the public safes. Many peasants left the rural areas to the cities in means to become factory workers, but found themselves earning almost nothing anyway. When Russia stepped in the First World War, there was a famine in the cities and the situation worsened. In 1917, a rebellion took place. The czar who had been making poor decisions for his people, was overthrown and later, executed. His wife, four daughters and son were arrested and kept in their own house, and were eventually killed. Some say, however, that one of the daughters, princess Anastacia, ran away and no one ever heard of her again.
Because of the Russian Revolution I’ve lost all the fortune my family left me, also the Moscow palace was confiscated. I moved to an apartment on the fifth floor. Anyhow, I was never jobless. The nation became a government of the people, and the artists were invited to help in the reconstruction of Russia. I accepted to be the director of the national network of museums, responsible for creating new galleries, reconstruct the former museums and manage the purchase of modern art work. Many art orders were addressed to me, I even designed decorative motifs of a saucer set, cups, plates and a teapot to a pottery state factory. Because traditionally porcelain plates displayed only flowers, animals and people wearing fancy clothes, everyone was surprised by my abstract design on the teacups.
Oh! I forgot to mention it. By then I had already been married twice: the first time with a cousin called Anja, and afterwards with the German painter Gabriele Münter. My third marriage lasted for the rest of my life. Our relationship began in a really different way: I fell in love with a voice over the phone and painted To the Unknown Voice. The owner of the voice was called Nina. I insisted until she would see me, and we lived our “Once upon a time…” and “Lived happily ever after”.
The years I lived in Russia among other artists that shared a new direction in painting made my manner on the canvas change.
I began to use even more geometric shapes. If the landscapes and the references of my beloved Russia, as churches domes, saints, knights and trees were before in my art as paint spots, now the figures had disappeared completely, with geometrical shapes with no direct connection to reality. Triangles, circles, squares and lines took over all my canvas.
People say I’m the pioneer of abstract art.
I guess I am, right? Abstract comes from the Latin abstraho which means “to be separated from”. An abstract painting doesn’t represent anything from reality around us, such as landscapes, scenes or human figures. In Russia, I was a co-founder of the Institute of Artistic Culture of Moscow – the Inkhuk -, the new academy of Russian art, where I developed a project to teach about the emotional effects of art works. Unfortunately my colleagues wouldn’t understand my proposition, what was really upsetting. Then, in 1921, an opportunity to come back to Germany and organize a new art school called Bauhaus popped up. And I accepted. The name Bauhaus comes from the verb bauen (build) and the noun haus (house). This school was envisioned by the architect Walter Gropius who believed the concepts of artist and crafter should go together. During classes, the teachings focused on essential skills for sculpting, painting and for architectural design, whereas in the laboratories, the students experimented what they had learned. I was chosen to teach art theory and mural painting. I was pretty happy because I wanted to create large wall works so one could walk inside. I had already made four large paintings for the Chevrolet founder’s apartment hall, in New York. I made them in four so the visitors would be surrounded by them and feel overwhelmed by the colors. I took the task to plan an entrance hall for an art museum. The project would be presented at an exhibition in Berlin. My students helped me and we made huge paintings, with lines and colorful shapes over a black background. It sounded like a joyful symphony… just like life until 1933. This was the year Adolf Hitler seized power and shutdown the School.
Unfortunately, Germany had turned into a dictatorship, and no longer it was a place for me. The title of my last work in Germany was Development in Brown, for the Nazi soldiers beige shirts. The Nazis rejected my work, they regarded me as a mad and dangerous man. Me, a 67 years old man, who painted colorful and geometrical shapes was considered dangerous‌Really? Once again I packed my things, and this time I moved to Paris to stay.
In short, I was born in Russia, when it was still an Empire, and I resided in two other countries. I intended to be a Law Teacher, but I became a painter. I was called crazy and now I’m recognized as one of the masters who launched the abstract art movement, one of the major turning points in Art History. I think it was definitely worth it!
Thus this written story ends right here. When writing, the dot is a symbol of a full stop. It’s the dot that separates two sentences; it is a meeting between words and silence. That is the dot I use and carry over to my painting. This way, the dot is only the beginning.
Patrocínio Banco do Brasil Produção Sapoti Pojetos Culturais Coordenação Geral Daniela Chindler Coordenação de Produção Fernanda Saul Flavia Rocha Gabriela da Fonseca Administrativo Cristiane Leal dos Santos Caderno Texto Daniela Chindler Pesquisa Arte A Produções Adriana Xerez Daniela Chindler Colaboração Alexandre Diniz Gabriela da Fonseca Luciana Chen Tradução para Inglês Daniela Ejzykowicz Revisão Camila Oliveira Luciana Chen Roberto Campanerut Thais Spinola Ilustrações Lula Palomanes Projeto Gráfico Nathalie Peixoto
Produção do Caderno
Exposição CCBB Brasília Kandinsky: Tudo Começa Num Ponto 12/11/2014 - 12/01/2015 Exposição CCBB Rio de Janeiro Kandinsky: Tudo Começa Num Ponto 28/01/2015 - 30/03/2015 Exposição CCBB Belo Horizonte Kandinsky: Tudo Começa Num Ponto 19/04/2015 - 29/06/2015 Exposição CCBB São Paulo Kandinsky: Tudo Começa Num Ponto 22/07/2015 - 28/09/2015 Curadoria Evgenia Petrova Joseph Kiblitsky Produção Arte A Produções Direção Geral Rodolfo de Athayde Coordenação Geral Ania Rodríguez Gerenciamento de Projeto Jennifer McLaughlin Assistente de Produção Monique Santos
Legendas: Pág. 08 - Esboço para Impressão III (Concerto) Janeiro, 1911 Pág. 08 - Esboço para Impressão III (Concerto) 3 de janeiro, 1911 Pág. 09 - Impressão III (Concerto), 1911 Pág. 11 - São Jorge (1), 1911 Óleo sobre tela 107 x 95,2 cm Museu Estatal Russo Pág. 19 - No branco, 1920 Óleo sobre tela 138 x 95 cm Museu Estatal Russo Ilustrações baseados nas obras: Capa - Linha Transversal, 1926 Óleo sobre tela Pág. 13 - Máscara Ritual do Demônio da Doença (Mahacola-sanni-yaksaya) Sri Lanka, madeira pintada, 120 x 79,8 cm Pág. 13 - Cavaleiro Azul, 1903 Óleo sobre tela
Exposição