Subjective Critique

My initial reaction to Wassily Kandinsky's "Farbstudie — Quadrate mit konzentrischen Ringen" color study of concentric rings gave me an overall sense of boredom. From a personal standpoint, Kandinsky's painting does not interest me very much, nor do I find it inviting or enjoyable. I perceive this artwork as very plainly executed. The lines and circles provide a flat and rigid feeling in the manner in which they were portrayed. In my opinion, the flatness comes from the painting providing a decreased sense of depth, shape, and three-dimensional form, which would make this piece more aesthetically pleasing. All the line work provided in the painting plainly goes vertical, horizontal and the circles in the center of the squares combined create a very rigid non-interesting articulation. Another aspect that makes the painting feel boring is the symmetrical shape which gives the eye a general focal point and nothing to actually focus on, admire, or draw attention to. Simply put, this work is missing a subject matter. To attempt to make this piece more aesthetically pleasing and more inviting, I will introduce depth by providing a balanced subject matter in a three-dimensional world with geometric shapes. This will give the new rendition shape, space and creative as well as interesting lines that derive from the geometric shapes. Through this approach, I believe we would take Kandinsky’s original work and breathe new life into the piece with a more focused, meaningful and dynamic aspect quality.

Objective Critique

Kandinsky’s work is seen as an abstract painting that uses bold isolated colors to create a texture showing one side of the painting with the warmth or coolness of the color tone, while the other side provides a sense of clarity and obscurity of that color tone. The isolated colors create squares that lead to horizontal and vertical lines seen in the painting that create squares around the color tones. Kandinsky utilized bold bright color values to create contrast in this piece. We see this in each of the isolated patterns where a bright color meets a dark color value as evidenced when blue meets yellow. He also uses the isolated values to create shape that leads to a sense of pattern, balance, unity and variety. We see the pattern of all the squares containing a circle inside of each other, and it remains balanced because it’s a symmetrical piece of artwork.  Through the use of unity and variety, we can see all parts of the piece working together and viewed as a whole. Variety is the difference seen in each isolated shape. Kandinsky displays a tremendously effective use of the Principles of Design and Elements of Art in this abstract master piece.

Compare and Contrast

During the process of recreating Kandinsky’s painting, I thought to myself what would make this piece of artwork more fun and inviting. So I recreated it with multiple subject matters and provided the viewer the opportunity to view Kandinsky's circles in a different way; from inside the artwork. This approach would allow the viewers to have subject matter, defined space and multiple focal points. Instead of keeping the isolated circles flat and rigid, I applied them to geometric cubes as a means of providing the sense of space and subject matter. I also added poles that attach to the cubes from the ceiling above. This would provide a sense that the cubes are hanging in the air. Ultimately, this approach would help lead the viewer's eyes throughout the composition to all the subject matters. I maintained all the original colors Kandinsky used to keep the texture the same.

Work in Progress

PreProduction #2

Image and Basic Information

Wasily Kandinsky. “Farbstudie — Quadrate mit konzentrischen Ringen” (Color study — squares with concentric rings) (1913), watercolor, gouache, and crayon on paper, 9 3⁄8 × 12 3⁄8 inches.