Il cavaliere azzurro

by Wassily Kandinsky, Franz Marc, Klaus Lankheit (Contributor)

"Il Cavaliere Azzurro", un almanacco di grande formato con illustrazioni a colori, uscì a Monaco di Baviera nel 1912. L'iniziativa della pubblicazione fu presa da un gruppo di pittori, musicisti e scrittori d'avanguardia tedeschi e russi che si raccoglieva intorno a Wassily Kandinsky e a Franz Marc. Accolto dalla reazione rabbiosa della critica ufficiale e dall'entusiasmo degli intellettuali più avanzati, il libro-almanacco divenne subito il punto di riferimento obbligato del vasto moto di rinnovamento artistico e culturale degli anni precedenti la prima guerra mondiale. Oggi, a quasi ottant'anni dalla sua uscita, esso è considerato come il più significativo documento programmatico dell'arte del XX secolo.

Genres: Art, Art History, History, Nonfiction, Music

273 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1912

About the author

Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky was a Russian painter, and Art theorist. He is credited with painting the first modern abstract works.
Born in Moscow, Kandinsky spent his childhood in Odessa. He enrolled at the University of Moscow and chose to study law and economics. Quite successful in his profession—he was offered a professorship (chair of Roman Law) at the University of Dorpat—he started painting studies (life-drawing, sketching and anatomy) at the age of 30.
In 1896 he settled in Munich and studied first in the private school of Anton Azbe and then at the Academy Of Fine Arts in Munich. He went back to Moscow in 1914 after World War I started. He was unsympathetic to the official theories on art in Moscow and returned to Germany in 1921. There he taught at the Bauhaus school of art and architecture from 1922 until the Nazis closed it in 1933. He then moved to France where he lived the rest of his life, and became a French citizen in 1939. He died at Neuilly-sur-Seine in 1944.

Reviews

[Eduardo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant set of essays, paintings and art. A snap shot of pre-WWI idealism and the still present drive to have art be more than simply form. Worth reading and looking at. Franz Marc & Wassily Kandinsky where amazing men & artists.

[Adrian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Algunos artículos son muy interesantes, otros no tanto. No obstante, una lectura imprescindible para amantes del arte.

[Anthony · Rating 4 out of 5]

pleasantly surprised by the amount of interesting music writing in a volume i expected to be more exclusively about painting. very cool essay by arnold schoenberg about the relationship between music and text-- i wasn't even aware that schoenberg was involved with the blaue reiter until i read this

[Nathaniel Klaung · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

[Calliope100 · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disappointed; I found it quite boring.

[Tory Adkisson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kandinsky and Marc were incredible artists. They were not, however, coherent prose writers, and the Blaue Reiter suffers from that--it's dense, overlong, convoluted, and quite recursive. A few of the essays fare better than others, and the Almanac certainly functions well as an introduction to Kandinsky and Marc's particular brand of German Expressionism, but it's not much for casual reading.

[Walter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Solid book.

A solid show is coming up from this group:

http://www.museum-frieder-burda.de/in...