Experiment 3

Kandinksy 

Kandinsky is an abstract artist “One of the pioneers of abstract modern art, Wassily Kandinsky exploited the evocative interrelation between color and form to create an aesthetic experience that engaged the sight, sound, and emotions of the public.”

is it possible to make marks that are completely unrelated to the perceived world, is pure abstraction possible?

Kandinsky made abstract paintings that were actually abstract with no thought or meaning behind it. “Painting was, above all, deeply spiritual for Kandinsky. He sought to convey profound spirituality and the depth of human emotion through a universal visual language of abstract forms and colors that transcended cultural and physical boundaries”

abstract piece without relation to narrative and things we perceive from the real world.

First abstract watercolour, 1910. Wallis Kandinsky

This is Kandinsky's first abstract painting made in 1910, which had conspiracies of being a completely abstract piece with no meaning. But when we look at this painting, we will always try and break it down and find some meaning towards it instead of appreciating it as how it is. When i look at this painting i see a narrative of a catastrophe at a picnic because of the larger amounts of greens used with different coloured brush strokes and squiggles flying out all over the place, but someone else might see something different which Kandinsky might not have been trying to perceive. 

In relation to my research i will find out if it is possible to create an abstract piece with no meaning or narrative, using music. I will construct an experiment that involves me listening to two song, one that i know and a completely random song. From then i will start to create an abstract piece that is solely based on my feeling towards the song and see if people see a narrative happening and see if a meaning is constructed just from someone else’s view of it.


After drawing these abstract pieces i asked several people what they perceived from this drawing from the colours, pattern and marks used.

^Lukas Graham- 7 years^

Keri said "i see it as just an bract piece, but i see some parts almost look symmetrical with harsh lines"

Becky said "chaos and mess with eyes almost like an abstract face"

Ben said "i see a face"

Andrew said "i see a glass of whiskey, star bursts, eyes and heart palpitations" 

Emily said "tear drops, erratic, i see energy, music notes and heart beats"

Georgina said "stars, springs, clouds, tornadoes, marbles and heart beats"  

^Die Antwood- Fatty boom boom^

Keri said "i see chaos and anger because of the reds and sharp movements,but still see just an abstract piece of work. I see a feeling more than visual"

Becky said "fireworks, and it looks like a happy scene"

Leah said "anger, mess and disaster"

Ivana said "Bad whether, fire, a drum and mess

Emily said "fire works, a drum, i see anger but i also see fun"

From this experiment i can see that everyone has different enterpritation when they see certain colours and brush strokes. The first image some tried to make a face out of it because parts are symmetrical, some others picked out certain features from the image and made there own interpretation where certain pen strokes could trigger memory of something thats similar to the pen strokes.

The seconds image people saw a feeling rather than interpreting it as a scene or face. I thin this is due to the colours used with the reds because we usually refer to red as a danger colour because of fires and explosions and when used in an erratic way makes you think of an unsafe place. But then again it down to how other visually interpret the image, because some others saw it as a fun place with fire works which again could trigger a memory to a happy time.

Referring back to if its possible to create just an abstract image, its very difficult to say because during the process i found my self overthinking. listening to the first song which i didn’t know what to expect so i there was no time to really think about what was going on and became more free willed, on the other side when listening to the second song i already know, i knew what to expect but the brush strokes wasn’t planned. Listening to different pieces of music does help create a different abstract image but its me reacting to music and then other peoples interpretation of my abstract drawing, but if i took away the music it becomes a solely abstract piece because the marks and colour would have no source of feeling behind it which Kandinsky was trying to show in abstract paintings.