1. 2nd German Expressionism movement
1911 to 1914
Munich, Germany
Der Blaue Reiter
(The Blue Rider)
Cover of Der Blaue Reiter almanac, c.1912

2. Der Blaue Reiter The spiritual in art
The spiritual and symbolic associations of color
The connection between visual art and music
Contemporary art, primitive and folk art, children's paintings
Exhibitions touring Germany in 1911 and 1912 
Wassily Kandinsky, On the Spiritual in Art ,1911
the spiritual life of humanity as a large triangle similar to a pyramid

3. Wassily Kandinsky
Franz Marc
August Macke
Paul Klee
Gabriele Münter
Albert Bloch
Natalia Goncharova
Marianne von Werefkin
Lyonel Feininger
Arnold Schoenberg

4. Wassily Kandinsky
Der Blaue Reiter,1903

5. Wassily Kandinsky
Composition IV o/c /8 x 98 5/8

6. Franz Marc Blue Horse I o/c 1911 112.5 x 84.5 cm
The fate of the animals o/c x 266 cm 

7. August Macke
Arabian Café
o/c x 21,8 cm

8. Wassily Kandinsky NON-OBJECTIVE Kandinsky Winter 1914
Kandinsky stressed the impact of color and its association with music, explaining that "color is a means of exerting direct influence upon the soul. Color is a keyboard. The eye is the hammer. The soul is the piano, with its many strings.“
MoMA wall text
Kandinsky
Winter 1914

9. During WWI Non-representational abstraction
The Russian Revolution and Suprematism
Belief in an art which expresses a reality beyond the material, a consciousness
like that of a meditative state in which ordinary reality is transcended;
eastern and Buddhist influences,
the Theosophical Society
(Kandinsky, Malevich, Mondrian, Duchamp, Pollock, Rothko, etc)

10. The Russian Avant Garde
Suprematism
( )
“Suprematism is the rediscovery of pure art that, in the course of time, had become obscured by the accumulation of 'things‘.”
Kasimir Malevich, The Non-Objective World
Geometric forms as paradigms of spiritual evolution
sacred geometry
“Under Suprematism I understand the supremacy of pure feeling in creative art.
To the Suprematist the visual phenomena of the objective world are, in themselves, meaningless; the significant thing is feeling, as such, quite apart
from the environment in which it is called forth.”

11. What artists found appealing about the various arcane religious and philosophical systems was
their underlying premise that the spiritual world is governed by laws that mirror natural laws and that can
be expressed in symbols. The idea is akin to Ralph Waldo Emerson’s notion that every appearance in nature
corresponds to some state of mind. Geometric forms are thus paradigms of spiritual evolution.
The spiritual world, like the natural world, is charged with energy, producing cosmic vibrations and
human auras. The spiritual principles that intrigued certain artists included synesthesia, the overlap
between the senses by which a painting can simulate music; duality, the idea that the cosmos reflects
an underlying principle of yin and yang; and so-called "sacred geometry," the belief that, as Plato put it,
"God geometricizes."
Spirituality in Abstract Art by Pamela Schaeffer on the subject of the exhibition "The Spiritual in Art: Abstract Painting ”.

12. Kazimir Malevich The Woodcutter, 1912
Morning in the Village after Snowstorm, 1912

13. Malevich, Cow and Violin, 1913
Malevich, Composition with Mona Lisa, 1913

14. Suprematism The artist constructs a new symbol with his brush.
This symbol is not a recognizable form of anything that is already finished,
already made, or already existent in the world — it is a symbol of a new world,
which is being built upon and which exists by the way of the people.
El Lissitzky

15. Malevich Kazimir Black Square 1913, o/c, 31 x 31
From Cubism to Suprematism
"the supremacy of pure feeling"
"The square = feeling, the white field = the void beyond this feeling."

16. Kazimir
Malevich
The Black Circle
1913, 41 x 41” 16

17. Malevich Kazimir 31 3/16x31 5/16" Black Square , 1915 o/c 31

18. Malevich Kazimir Suprematist Painting: Eight Red Rectangles
o/c, 1915, 22 x 19” 18

19. Black Square and Red Square, 1915
Kazimir
Malevich
Suprematist Composition. 1915
Black Square and Red Square, 1915

20. Kasimir Malevich Supremus No. 56 1916, o/c, 31 x 28 “
Suprematist Composition. 1916

21. Kazimir
Malevich
Suprematist Composition: White on White, 1918, o/c, 31 x 31”

22. Malevich, 0.10. Last Futurist Exhibition (Black Square), 1915

23. © 2006, State Russian Museum, St Petersburg
Kasimir Malevich lying in state in his Leningrad apartment (17-18 May 1935)
© 2006, State Russian Museum, St Petersburg

24. Malevich, Black Square , 1915

25. Kasimir Malevich, Self-Portrait. 1933.

26. Art of the Revolution (1917-21)
Between the Wars
Russian Abstraction
Art of the Revolution ( )
Constructivism
Constructivism was created by Malevich and Tatlin four years before the Russian revolution. Two further figures are Rodchenko and Popova. Also Laszlo Moholy-Nagy (he constructed 3D objects). They all believed in a revolution in art but their hopes were dashed in The great subjects are the everyday. Realistic but not naturalistic. Tatlin visited Picasso's studio in Paris. Mondrian, Kandinsky and Tatlin did take the step Picasso never took into complete abstraction. Transience, ephemerality. Cubist collage is ephemeral. Tatlin was deliberately creating works that would not last. Constructivists thought any reference to the real world was a distraction. Tatlin was sculpting space not objects. He had purely formal concerns. Most works of art create an art space by using a pillar or a frame. In a 1915 exhibition Malevich put his work in a corner, displacement out of the traditional spaces of art. The works are revolutionary with respect to traditional Russian art. Popova was determinately abstract. Dominance of a single colour, lack of modelling, link to collage. Popova and Rodchenko produced works based on engineering - pencil, ruler and compass. They wanted to remove the hand of the artist and its subjectivity, so their work is objective and "cool". The events of 1917 in the social field were forecast by the revolution in art in Tatlin. After the revolution Rodchenko took on a Government role. Art would move out of the museum to the people and into industry. They would create prototypes for industrial design and thus take on a utilitarian role. In 1918 some artists started to call themselves constructors rather than artist. Their interest in the industrial reminds us of Donald Judd and his use of industrial materials. Society of Young Artists exhibition - they wanted to dissociate themselves from art. "Achieving the materialist construction of communist objects". They thought they would help produce useful goods. First working group of Constructivists of His classic work is Oval Hanging Construction. Moholy "Narj". Thought he was producing art (others were ambivalent – they called themselves artisans, engineers, and felt they were doing useful design and research work). He went to Moscow not Paris. Lenin set by NARCOMPROS, the Peoples Commissariate for Education. Led to Tatlin's monument to the Third International. Architecture. Glass and steel. Inner part revolve once a year, month, day. Twice the height of the Empire State building. Also Gabo and his brother Pevsner made mobiles. They wrote the Realistic Manifesto. "War as a cleansing event". New clampdown on the avant guard started in 1921, Gabo and Pevsner left in Artists had to find a new living with the loss of the middle class. Their work was put to new uses, advertising and propaganda. Lenin died in Stalin took over and only wanted propaganda.
Constructivism had a great influence on Mondrian

27. Vladimir Tatlin Relief c. 1914 found objects
Metal and leather on wood  24 3/4 x 20 7/8 in. 

28. Vladimir Tatlin
Relief, 1914
Corner Counter Relief, 1915
Found objects

29. Model for Monument to the Third International, 1919-20
Tatlin
Model for Monument to the Third International,

30. Tatlin, Model for Monument to the Third International, 1919-20

31. towering symbol of modernity
iron, glass and steel
towering symbol of modernity
The tower's main form was a twin helix which spiraled up to 400 m in height,
which visitors would be transported around with the aid of various mechanical devices.
The main framework would contain three enormous rotating geometric structures.
At the base of the structure was a cube which was designed as a venue for lectures,
conferences and congress meetings, and would complete a rotation in the span of one year.
In the centre of the structure was a cone, housing executive activities and completing a
rotation once a month. The topmost one, a cylinder, was to house an information centre,
issuing news bulletins and manifestos via telegraph, radio and loudspeaker, and would
complete a rotation once a day. There were also plans to install a gigantic open-air screen
on the cylinder, and a further projector which would be able to cast messages across
the clouds on any overcast day

32. Aleksandr Rodchenko , Compass and Ruler Drawing 2 (1914-15)

33. Non-Objective Painting: Black on Black Date: 1918
Aleksandr Rodchenko
Non-Objective Painting: Black on Black Date: 1918
o/c, 32 1/4 x 31 1/4"

34. Oval Hanging Construction Number 12
Aleksandr Rodchenko
Oval Hanging Construction Number 12
ca. 1920
Plywood, open construction partially painted with aluminum paint, and wire
24 x 33 x 18 1/2 in.

35. Rodchenko, Hanging Construction, c.1920

36. Aleksandr Rodchenko
Triptych: Pure Colors: Red, Yellow, Blue, 1921

37. Aleksandr Rodchenko Gouache on paper 33 x 20"
Advertisment for cooking oil, 1923
“Attention working masses Three times cheaper than butter! More nutritious than other oils! Nowhere else as at Mossel'prom.”
Box for “Our Industry”
caramels from Mossel’prom, 1923

38. Aleksandr Rodchenko
Advertisement for cookies from the Krasnyi Oktiabr' (Red October) factory Gouache on paper 32 x 21 3/4"
I eat cookies from the Krasnyi Oktiabr' factory, formerly Einem. I don't buy anywhere except at Mossel'prom.

39. Aleksandr Rodchenko
Poster for the Propaganda of the Book

40. El Lissitzky Proun, Prounen
“Design for the confirmation of the new”
“The goal-oriented creation” (das zielbewußte Schaffen)
Abstraction, art for the masses (the universal language)
"the station where one changes from painting to architecture."
shifting axes and multiple perspectives
Influence on De Stijl, Bauhaus, and 20th century graphic design
Proun, 1920
Gouache and watercolor on paper, 15 x 15”

41. El Lissitzky Proun, 1925 Proun, 1920 distemper, tempera, varnish
and pencil on canvas
Proun, 1920

42. El Lissitzky The Constructor, Self Portrait, 1925
self-portrait photomontage

43. El Lissitzky, Beat The Whites With The Red Wedge
lithograph poster for the political department of the western front, 1920

44. Klinom krasnim meaning: "With Red Wedge" Red is left: political color and position of communists
White was a standard color of anti-revolutionary forces Circle was s supremtists symbol for unchangeable
Red was a standard symbol of revolution Edge was asupremtist symbol of something new
Bey Belych meaning: "Beat Whites" White is right: political color
and position of anti-revolutionaries
Painted during the Civil War in Russia ( )  between Reds and Whites

45. El Lissitzky Proun room
“The image is not a painting, but a structure around which we must circle, looking at it from all sides,
peering down from above, investigating from below.”
Proun room
The Great Berlin
Art Exhibition 1923
“The goal-oriented creation”
(the first installation, viewer as part of the work)

46. Kandinsky, 1920’3 & 30’s

47. Wassily Kandinsky Several Circles (Einige Kreise), 1926.
Oil on canvas, 55” x 55”.
Geometric purity v. textured background
Molecular world and solar systems