These are two artists I previously looked at when I originally looked at modernism. I have chosen these two to compare first because when looking at their work you can instantly see such a striking difference and contrast between them.
The two photographs above are of one from each artist that I am going to compare. Instantly you can see see what a contrast, the photograph above is of a painting by Wassily, which is incredibly colourful and free, the photograph on the bottom, the brown tinted very organised one is by Anni Albers. The colour is the first striking difference I noticed. The one on top has used bright pinks, yellows blues and splashes of other primary colours which contrast from each other and make one another pop to stand out from the page, while the painting underneath by Ani has a very sepia feel about it, the colours are very dull and dark ranging from blacks to light browns. The second great difference between each of the paintings is the composition, Wassily's painting, among with many of his others is very free and un-restricted. It looks as though Wassily painted this with his eyes closed, possibly feeling his way around the canvas, creating such an interesting result. Anni's approach is totally different, her perfectly defined lines between each tone of colour create the impression of a tiled floor, very sophisticated and an educated looking approach.
Wassily kandinsky (the pink bright, abstract type painting on top), is a male painter, and was considered one of the first abstract painters in his approach, but he classed his work as modernism. He is credited and remembered as the first person to create a purely abstract piece of work, ever. Wassily was a very well educated man, he studied Law and didn't even begin painting until he was in his thirties. He didn't believe in the restrictive terms of art at that time, hence why he classed himself as a modernist painter, it allowed him the freedom to justify such strange paintings which, at the time, hadn't been done before. He taught art in Germany until the school was closed by Nazis, which was when he moved to France to create his most prominent pieces of work before his death,
The inspiration behind Wassily's work was his desire for freedom in his work. He paints in such a free an abstract way without a plan, he just does simply what his body tells him to do; something he apparently called "spiritual art", he wrote a book called "on the spiritual in Art" which was released in 1910. in his book he explained that the uses his art to connect with himself on a spiritual level, he allows his spiritual self to come forward and command his actions when he paints, claiming this is the cause for him reaching a level of spirituality.
Anni takes a very mathematical and logical approach to her work, the complete opposite to Wassily. She studied art, but was disappointed when she was refused and banned form several of the classes she wanted to take, which included architecture, she instead had to settle with learning weaving, and other things which were 'more suitable' for women. Anni ended up loving weaving and it's difficult textile contractions. You can see from her work (the image on the bottom above) how the weaving practices have come forward in her work. The piece above was weaved, concentrating on her wrinkle-free work. She had been experimenting with textiles to find techniques and processes which minimalised wrinkling and warping in her work. She was commissioned to produce several wall hangings and began working with other great artists around that time, such as Paul Klee (who is also a modernist artist).
So you can see the difference in the origins of ideas behind each persons pieces. The free and expressionate paintings by Wassily came from the soul, there was no plan and no need for him to feel as though he needed to conform at all. This contrasts Anni because Anni creates her pieces with a weaving technique, which is obviously a very specific technique, she flattens out all of her pieces and creates them in such a way so that there is no bumps or anything, which is obviously very thoroughly thought out and planned. This also explains the colour co-ordination in the piece, the reasons the colours are so specifically placed like that.
Comparing Joseph Albers to Paul Klee
The two photographs above are photographs of work by the artists Paul Klee (the photograph on top) and Josef Albers (the photograph on the bottom). Paul's work is inspired greatly by expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. He explored color theory and the way colours work together. Paul's work is described as abstract painting. He was already accomplished as a designer, photographer, typographer, printmaker and a poet. His most famous works were all a load of differently coloured squares which together created the collection "Homage to the square". These two artists obviously therefore contrast in the same way the previous two modernist artists contrasted, one is very mathematical and theoretical on their approach, the other is creative and free, using other influences and theories to compliment his abstract type approach, but still keeping it unique.
I chose these two artists to compare to each other because I know that they have both looked at, and written about colour theories. One released a book (paul), and the other teaches colour theories, yet their work is both so different. Josef's work is very sharp and crisp, his pieces are a similar minimalistic style to this one, and they have all been thoroughly planned with certain compositions and colour pairs for each piece. you can see that Paul has used colour theories in his work; he has used orange and blues in the painting above, which contrast and compliment each other on the colour spectrum, but because the composition of the piece isn't as sophisticated you don't assume that there is any theories behind it.
Again both artists have looked at cubism, and used cubism in these pieces of work. You can see it coming through it both pieces, the way the image is fragmented and sectioned almost into different shapes is very clear, but instantly the second image by Josef is related to cubism far more than the one by Paul because of it's blatantly obvious that there is cubes present in his piece, while Paul's could pass as a collaged mass of colours.
I love the way that Paul adds little textural details on to his cubed areas, you can see mottled shading and tones of different colours in his work which you can't see in any of Josef's, Josef's work is all very monotone in his approach. Paul also changes the size and angles as they get further up the canvas creating a sense of depth and distance, where as Josef's images all just look plain 2D on the page.
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