Authentication
While Kandinsky is mostly known today for his magnificent abstract paintings, until 1910 -until the age of 44- he was a representational painter. His representational period lasted 14 years. He had begun painting at the age of 30. His representational style is mostly impressionist.
While until 1909 he had been painting things like this:
Wassily Kandinsky. My Room. 1909.
And like that:
Wassily Kandinsky. Winter Landscape. 1909.
In 1910 he suddenly came up with:
Wassily Kandinsky. Untitled. 1910. His first abstract painting.
These initial abstract paintings are known as his improvisations. They express his emotional reaction.
Once he became comfortable with what he had discovered (abstract painting a.k.a. non-representational a.k.a. abstract-expressionism) Kandinsky went far beyond expressing emotional reactions. He became a symphony composer but instead of composing with music he did it with shapes and colors.
Wassily Kandinsky. Composition VII. 1913.
The most complex composition he ever painted, he said.
And this -the Compositions- is what form the third group of Kandinsky creations.
In 1911 he published “Concerning the spiritual in art” where he explained how the images in his compositions were born from his unconscious.
He wrote many other books including “The Art of Spiritual Harmony”. “Point and Line to Plane”. “Sounds” where he repeatedly discusses space, color, design and seeing.
Because he expressed and explained so much about how he painted, Kandinsky is one of a small group of artists, where authentication must include a psychoanalysis; or one could say a profiling of the artist; in the sense in which it is used for criminal investigations.
To do so successfully, one must naturally be well familiar with his system, his process, his method, as outlined and explained in his books.
If you believe you may have a Kandinsky, we would like to hear about it. He is an artist of interest to us, and we can help you with authenticating it.