so, like i said awhile back, when i was in 5th grade in an L.A. suburb, my classmates and i were instructed to render a copy of Kandinsky's 1911 painting Lyrical, as part of what i guess you would call 'art appreciation'. we were told to make our copies as close as possible; the best would win a prize. me and this dude named Craig tied for the prize, whatever it was.

years later my parents ended up framing my drawing, and i had to wait awhile to mention to them that it was a copy of a famous painting. i didn't want them to feel dumb or anything.

the framed drawing is still on a wall in the house where i spent my teenage years. i snapped it when i was in L.A. for Christmas. the drawing is ok for having been done by a 5th grader. i remember the verdict in class was that i matched Kandinsky's lines most closely and Craig matched the colors most closely. to this day i know jackshit about color. i don't remember Craig's lines.

so here they are

Lyrical, 1911
by Wassily Kandinsky

my 5th grade copy

file under; drawn; kandinsky
link / 2 have made it up

I own Taschen's softcover 1994 Wassily Kandinsky book because Kandinsky's art was the first art I ever pointed to in a museum and said I liked it. This happened at LACMA when I was I guess about five or six. Later, when I was in fifth grade, in a bizarre school project that was part of some program called 'Art Docents' that made absolutely no sense, my classmates and I were instructed to render a copy of Kandinsky's 1911 painting of a running horse, entitled Lyrical. There was, for some reason, a contest involved, with a prize or something for the closest copy. A poster-size print of the painting was stuck on the blackboard, and we were all given some rough-textured paper and pastels. We all tried to make as close a copy of the painting as possible, and in the end, the class and teacher and visiting 'Art Docent' decided that I'd come closest to copying the lines, and this dude Eric [who was smart, attractive, and i think gay /edit: and i just remembered his name was Craig, not Eric] had come closest to copying the colors. We both got some kind of prize. Maybe just recognition actually. I remember standing at the front of the class with [Craig], holding up our horse drawings. I was actually very into horses at the time, and within a couple years, I would [briefly] own a horse.

I brought the drawing home, and I know I explained the whole business of the contest to my parents at the time, because I thought it was an absolutely ridiculous way to teach art and I hadn't even enjoyed doing it. Somehow, though, they forgot or weren't listening or whatever, and they were so impressed with this impressionistic drawing of a racing horse that they _framed_ it. It was only after it had been hanging framed for at least a few years that I finally had the chance to bring it up and explain it to them that it was a copy of a famous painting.

I swear to god, this is all true. I think the framed drawing is still in my father's office someplace. I'm going to check when I'm in California this Christmas.

I got the Taschen Kandinsky book for Christmas in 1994, after having been reminded of Kandinsky by the film Six Degrees of Separation, which includes a long, hilarious nonsense treatise on the paintings of Kandinsky and The Catcher in the Rye. In it, Donald Sutherland plays a Manhattan aristocrat obsessed with art, who rants, 'Kandinsky left areas of his canvas blank, if he had nothing to paint on them, rather than have imperfection.' [What else you need to know about the film: while very passionate about something or other, it has nothing to say about art. Will Smith, who reveals himself to be kinda shitty at playing queer in the first place, has a stunt double kiss Anthony Michael Hall because he was thinking, quote [Entertainment Weekly], 'What are my boys in Philly gonna say about this?' His character is a con man who claims to be the son of Sidney Poitier.]

Kandinsky left blank space at the apparent risk of imperfection? Blank canvas is perfect? You would think this meant Kandinsky left giant open spaces on his canvases. Kandinksy's canvases actually tend to be- i dunno, pretty full so far as canvases go? Of course Kandinsky uses what's called 'negative space', but not more than any other random artist. It's such a bizarre moment in that film. Everything the movie says about The Catcher in the Rye is similarly daft. At the end of the film, Will Smith supposedly hangs himself with a pink shirt. 'That burst of color,' Stockard Channing tears. Whatever.

In the fucking meantime?

Hello Prophet --> [let's talk about the artist]

file under; drawn; hero worship; kandinsky; quoted
link / 0 have made it up