Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Kandinsky, fifty 11 year olds, and Me.




For most of today I was an art teacher at the 'tooting' school. I taught two Year 7 classes and each had to do a drawing of their own design, but in a similar style to this one by Russian artist Wassily Kandinsky. I even had a go at it myself. I was teaching them because their teacher was busy with the Year 11 art assessments and we were relocated to a Maths room. Which was actually idea because of the availability of compasses, protractors and rulers.

Over the two classes I came to love and admire this piece of art. At first it seems simple, but, take a closer look and the intricacies become apparent. It is detailed, but not cluttered. It seems random, but everything is placed and proportioned to give the overall feel. It could be highly mathematical, or void of numbers.

It was really interesting to see how the students interpreted the art, what details and patterns they chose to reproduce on their own. They accepted it as a piece of art, and yet were not in any was intimidated about trying it for themselves.

What amazed me was learning when I got home that this was actually made in 1923. I'm still astonished at how early 'modern art' started. I think I might have to go back to the Tate when I'm next in London.

3 comments:

  1. I agree. I was bowled over by the Kandinskys I saw in the Peggy Guggenheim gallery in Venice. I liked them so much I bought a tee shirt with one of the paintings reproduced on it (long time faded now unfortunately).

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