Time Travel Back to 1926 and Watch Wassily Kandinsky Make Art in Some Rare Vintage Video

in Art | June 29th, 2012

Have you ever won­dered what it would be like to trav­el back in time and look over the shoul­der of one of the ear­ly 20th cen­tu­ry’s great­est artists to watch him work? In this brief film from 1926, we get to see the Russ­ian painter Wass­i­ly Kandin­sky as he turns a blank can­vas into one of his dis­tinc­tive abstract com­po­si­tions.

The film was made at the Galerie Neu­mann-Nieren­dorf in Berlin by Hans Cürlis, a pio­neer in the mak­ing of art doc­u­men­taries. At the time the film was made Kandin­sky was teach­ing at the Bauhaus. It was the same year he pub­lished his sec­ond major trea­tise, On Point and Line to Plane. The con­trast­ing straight lines and curves that Kandin­sky paints in the movie are typ­i­cal of this peri­od, when his approach was becom­ing less intu­itive and more con­scious­ly geo­met­ric.

Kandin­sky believed that an artist could reach deep­er truths by dis­pens­ing with the depic­tion of exter­nal objects and by look­ing with­in, and despite his ana­lyt­ic turn at the Bauhaus he con­tin­ued to speak of art in deeply mys­ti­cal terms. In On Point and Line to Plane, Kandin­sky writes:

The work of Art mir­rors itself upon the sur­face of our con­scious­ness. How­ev­er, its image extends beyond, to van­ish from the sur­face with­out a trace when the sen­sa­tion has sub­sided. A cer­tain trans­par­ent, but defini­nite glass-like par­ti­tion, abol­ish­ing direct con­tact from with­in, seems to exist here as well. Here, too, exists the pos­si­bil­i­ty of enter­ing art’s mes­sage, to par­tic­i­pate active­ly, and to expe­ri­ence its pul­sat­ing life with all one’s sens­es.

kandinsky 1926

Relat­ed con­tent:

Helen Mir­ren Tells Us Why Wass­i­ly Kandin­sky Is Her Favorite Artist (And What Act­ing & Mod­ern Art Have in Com­mon)

The Inner Object: See­ing Kandin­sky

Vin­tage Footage of Picas­so and Jack­son Pol­lock Paint­ing … Through Glass

Watch Icon­ic Artists at Work: Rare Videos of Picas­so, Matisse, Kandin­sky, Renoir, Mon­et, Pol­lock & More

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Mathematics Made Visible: The Extraordinary Mathematical Art of M.C. Escher

in Art, Math | June 22nd, 2012

The eye and the intel­lect play off one anoth­er in sur­pris­ing and beau­ti­ful ways in the art of M.C. Esch­er. Where the Renais­sance mas­ters used shad­ing and per­spec­tive to cre­ate the illu­sion of three-dimen­sion­al depth on two dimen­sion­al sur­faces, Esch­er turned those tricks in on them­selves to cre­ate puz­zles and para­dox­es. He manip­u­lat­ed our fac­ul­ties of per­cep­tion not sim­ply to please the sens­es, but to stim­u­late the mind.

His cool, ana­lyt­ic ten­den­cy was appar­ent from the start. “Mau­rits Esch­er is a good graph­ic artist,” wrote the head­mas­ter of the Haar­lem School of Archi­tec­ture and Dec­o­ra­tive Arts in 1922, the year of Escher’s grad­u­a­tion, “but he lacks the right artis­tic tem­pera­ment.

His work is to too cerebral–neither emo­tion­al nor lyri­cal enough.” Escher’s work became even more cere­bral over time, as it grew in geo­met­ric sophis­ti­ca­tion. In describ­ing what went into the cre­ation of his wood­cuts and engrav­ings, Esch­er wrote:

The ideas that are basic to them often bear wit­ness to my amaze­ment and won­der at the laws of nature which oper­ate in the world around us. He who won­ders dis­cov­ers that this is in itself a won­der. By keen­ly con­fronting the enig­mas that sur­round us, and by con­sid­er­ing and ana­lyz­ing the obser­va­tions that I had made, I end­ed up in the domain of math­e­mat­ics. Although I am absolute­ly inno­cent of train­ing or knowl­edge in the exact sci­ences, I often seem to have more in com­mon with math­e­mati­cians than with my fel­low artists.

The affin­i­ty between Esch­er and math­e­mati­cians is described in the scene above from the the BBC doc­u­men­tary, The Math­e­mat­i­cal Art of M.C. Esch­er. “Math­e­mati­cians know their sub­ject is beau­ti­ful,” says Ian Stew­art of the Uni­ver­si­ty of War­wick. “Esch­er shows us that it’s beau­ti­ful.”

If the BBC clip whets your appetite, be sure to watch Meta­mor­phose: M.C. Esch­er, 1898–1972, a 2002 doc­u­men­tary by Jan Bro­driesz. The one-hour film gives an excel­lent overview of the Dutch artist’s life and work, and fea­tures a rare inter­view with Esch­er, along with scenes of him cre­at­ing his art. If you’re a fan of Esch­er, this film is a must-see.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Free Online Math Cours­es

M.C. Escher’s Per­pet­u­al Motion Water­fall Brought to Life: Real or Sleight of Hand?

Inspi­ra­tions: A Short Film Cel­e­brat­ing the Math­e­mat­i­cal Art of M.C. Esch­er

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Salvador Dalí Sketches Five Spanish Immortals: Cervantes, Don Quixote, El Cid, El Greco & Velázquez

in Art, Literature | June 20th, 2012

A few weeks back, we brought you Sal­vador Dalí’s 100 Illus­tra­tions of Dante’s The Divine Com­e­dy and men­tioned that we were sav­ing Dalí’s draw­ings of Don Quixote for anoth­er day. Well, that day has come.

In the ear­ly 1960s, a Swiss pub­lish­er com­mis­sioned Dalí to cre­ate a print edi­tion cel­e­brat­ing five real and imag­ined fig­ures who loom large in the Span­ish cul­tur­al imag­i­na­tion. The col­lec­tion was called The Five Span­ish Immor­tals, and it fea­tured sketch­es of Cer­vantes, Europe’s first great nov­el­ist and his unfor­get­table pro­tag­o­nist, Don Quixote. The book also paid homage to the medieval hero El Cid; the mas­ter painter El Gre­co; and Diego Rodríguez de Sil­va y Velázquez — some­one The Met calls “the most admired—perhaps the greatest—European painter who ever lived.” Cer­vantes appears above, and the remain­ing quar­tet below.

Don Quixote

El Cid

El Gre­co

Velázquez

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Modern Masters: Watch BBC Series Introducing the Art of Warhol, Matisse, Picasso and Dali

in Art, Television | June 18th, 2012

Mod­ern art. Like it or not, it’s had a pro­found impact on the way our world looks. As crit­ic Alas­tair Sooke explains in this four-part series from the BBC, the great art­works of the past cen­tu­ry have exert­ed an influ­ence that extends far beyond muse­um walls.

Mod­ern Mas­ters, first broad­cast in 2010 on the main­stream chan­nel BBC One, looks at the life, work, and abid­ing influ­ence of Hen­ri Matisse, Pablo Picas­so, Sal­vador Dali and Andy Warhol. “Art dur­ing the 20th cen­tu­ry was rad­i­cal, intox­i­cat­ing, and immense­ly influ­en­tial,” says Sooke, deputy art crit­ic of The Dai­ly Tele­graph. “Matisse, Picas­so, Dali and Warhol did­n’t just change art his­to­ry; they changed the world.”

Episode one, Andy Warhol: For a series exam­in­ing the influ­ence of 20th cen­tu­ry art through the prism of celebri­ty artists, it’s fit­ting that Sooke should begin with an artist obsessed with celebri­ty. Sooke fol­lows Warhol (see above) from his impov­er­ished child­hood in Pitts­burgh to New York City, where he strug­gled as a com­mer­cial artist before becom­ing famous as a pop artist. Along the way he shows how Warhol’s aes­thet­ic sen­si­bil­i­ty now per­me­ates our cul­ture. The oth­er three episodes pro­ceed along sim­i­lar lines. Each is just under an hour long.

Episode two, Hen­ri Matisse:

Episode three, Pablo Picas­so:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cU5TDkjhLNs#t=09

Episode four, Sal­vador Dali:

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Robert Hugh­es, Famed Art Crit­ic, Demys­ti­fies Mod­ern Art: From Cézanne to Andy Warhol

Simon Schama Presents Van Gogh and the Begin­ning of Mod­ern Art

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Simon Schama Presents Van Gogh and the Beginning of Modern Art

in Art, Television | June 13th, 2012

We like to think of Vin­cent van Gogh as the arche­typ­al tor­tured artist. While per­haps he fits the bill, there’s more to the sto­ry, and this episode of Pow­er of Art (above) takes pains to fill out the Dutch painter’s char­ac­ter. He did­n’t slice off his entire ear, we learn — just part of it. And while he did indeed enjoy his peaks of cre­ativ­i­ty between ago­niz­ing “spasms of crazi­ness,” he expe­ri­enced both as an “insa­tiable book­worm” fueled by a deep-seat­ed reli­gious dri­ve. All this infor­ma­tion comes from the mouth of his­to­ri­an Simon Schama, author of pop­u­lar books and host of tele­vi­sion pro­grams includ­ing Land­scape and Mem­o­ry, Rem­brandt’s Eyes, and this par­tic­u­lar video’s source, Pow­er of Art. The series enters the world of eight artists through eight paint­ings. Van Gogh’s 1890 Wheat­field with Crows, accord­ing to Schama, marks the start of mod­ern art.

Two per­son­al­i­ties take us through the sto­ry of paint­ing and painter: Schama and van Gogh him­self, por­trayed in dra­mat­ic scenes that come between sec­tions of Schama’s nar­ra­tion. The pro­gram does­n’t keep these two time frames strict­ly sep­a­rate: while we hear Schama describe van Gogh’s pecu­liar­ly ener­getic use of the brush, we also hear the brush itself, loud­ly and clear­ly, as we watch van Gogh wield it. (Pow­er of Art’s sound design shows an uncom­mon atten­tion to detail.) Lat­er, we see van Gogh lament the episodes of insan­i­ty that have him eat­ing dirt off the floor. Cut to Schama: “It’s worse, actu­al­ly.” A har­row­ing extend­ed shot fol­lows of the painter eat­ing his paint. Nev­er has tele­vi­sion taught art his­to­ry quite so dra­mat­i­cal­ly.

All episodes of The Pow­er of Art are avail­able on YouTube. It’s also avail­able in one tidy col­lec­tion on Ama­zon:

Relat­ed con­tent:

The Art His­to­ry Web Book

Robert Hugh­es, Famed Art Crit­ic, Demys­ti­fies Mod­ern Art: From Cézanne to Andy Warhol

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

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Rembrandt’s Facebook Timeline

in Art, Technology | June 7th, 2012

The Rijksmu­se­um, locat­ed in Ams­ter­dam, hous­es famous paint­ings by Rem­brandt, Ver­meer, and oth­er Dutch mas­ters. Recent­ly, the 212-year-old muse­um decid­ed to get a lit­tle mod­ern when it imag­ined what Rem­brandt’s Face­book Time­line might look like. “I made a self-por­trait. Let me know what you think!,” Rem­brandt announces (in Eng­lish!) 384 years ago — to which Peter Paul Rubens, a con­tem­po­rary, responds, “Nice one!” And lat­er Rem­brandt announces, “Look what Johannes [Ver­meer] made!,” point­ing to the The Milk Maid, which already has over 5,000 “Likes.” And so the video goes.

You can find The Rijksmu­se­um on Face­book here, and our stim­u­lat­ing Face­book Page here, where we share our posts every day.

via Sci­ence Dump

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Salvador Dalí’s Illustrations of Dante’s The Divine Comedy

in Art, Literature | June 6th, 2012

In 1957, the Ital­ian gov­ern­ment com­mis­sioned Sal­vador Dalí to paint a series of 100 water­col­or illus­tra­tions of Dante’s Divine Com­e­dy, the great­est lit­er­ary work writ­ten in the Ital­ian lan­guage. The illus­tra­tions were to be fin­ished by 1965, the 700th anniver­sary of the poet­’s birth, and then repro­duced and released in lim­it­ed print edi­tions. The deal fell apart, how­ev­er, when the Ital­ian pub­lic learned that their lit­er­ary pat­ri­mo­ny had been put in the hands of a Spaniard. Unde­terred, Dalí pushed for­ward on his own, paint­ing illus­tra­tions for the epic poem that col­lec­tive­ly recount Dante’s sym­bol­ic trav­els through Hell, Pur­ga­to­ry and Heav­en. After Dalí did his part, the project was hand­ed over to two wood engravers, who spent five years hand-carv­ing 3,500 blocks used to cre­ate the repro­duc­tions of Dalí’s mas­ter­piece. Almost 50 years lat­er, print edi­tions can still be pur­chased online. And the paint­ings them­selves still trav­el the globe, mak­ing their way to muse­ums large and small. You can view images from the col­lec­tion at this Cor­nell Uni­ver­si­ty web­site.

Relat­ed Con­tent 

Sal­vador Dalí’s Haunt­ing 1975 Illus­tra­tions for Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juli­et

The Most Com­plete Col­lec­tion of Sal­vador Dalí’s Paint­ings Pub­lished in a Beau­ti­ful New Book by Taschen: Includes Nev­er-Seen-Before Works

Alice’s Adven­tures in Won­der­land, Illus­trat­ed by Sal­vador Dalí in 1969, Final­ly Gets Reis­sued

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A Soft Self-Portrait of Salvador Dali, Narrated by the Great Orson Welles

in Art, Film | June 4th, 2012

The sur­re­al­ism of Sal­vador Dali knew no bound­aries. It went straight from his paint­ings and into his per­son­al life. Every­thing was a spec­ta­cle. The pub­lic loved Dali for it, but jour­nal­ists always wres­tled with his show­man­ship, won­der­ing how to extract seri­ous answers from the man. (Watch Dali toy with Mike Wal­lace here.) And, of course, some­one like Dali posed chal­lenges for biog­ra­phers. Could you make Dali con­form to the con­ven­tion­al bio­graph­i­cal form? In 1970, the French direc­tor Jean-Christophe Aver­ty trav­eled to Spain, to the lit­tle sea­side vil­lage of Portl­li­gat, where he shot a 52 minute doc­u­men­tary called A Soft Self-Por­trait of Sal­vador Dali. Orson Welles nar­rates the film and lay­ers in some tra­di­tion­al bio­graph­i­cal ele­ments. But, oth­er­wise, the film does­n’t both­er try­ing to fit a round peg into a square hole. It embraces Dal­i’s schtick and goes along for the sur­re­al­ist ride. In this sep­a­rate video you can take a tour of Sal­vador Dal­i’s sea­side home.

You can find A Soft Self-Por­trait of Sal­vador Dali per­ma­nent­ly housed in our col­lec­tion 4,000+ Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, Doc­u­men­taries & More.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

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