Friday 18 November 2011

following in kandinsky’s footsteps?

Kandinsky was a Russian artist.  Colour was very important to him.  He thought that colour could show feelings in the same way that music can.  So he painted splodgy abstract patterns rather than realistic things.  Here is (a bit of) his painting entitled ‘Dreamy Improvisation’.

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Alexis pointed out that he used ‘a lot of colour’ and many of us ‘saw’ different things hidden amongst the squiggles.

Here is another of his paintings.  It is called Improvisation No. 26 (Rowing)

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Even though this too looks just like a lot of squiggles and splodges, if you look closely you might spot some clues that point to the ‘rowing’ part of the title.  Maybe the red curve is the rowing boat.  Maybe those straight black lines are the oars and maybe, just maybe, the black curved lines are the people holding onto them.  And do you see that bird flying in the sky?  And the sunlight reflected on the water?

And as we have seen, colour for us too is important.  So we thought we would have a go at ‘improvising’ a feeling of peace, using different colours of chalk on black paper.  To help with the peaceful mood, we played peaceful music and tried our best to work quietly.

Here is how it went.  We got a string of green loops…..

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and a combination of blue, purple and gold knotted squiggles.

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We had parallel lines…..

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and a delicious fiery smoky smudge.

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And we all ended up with the prettiest of fingers!

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Concentration was intense…..

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and the feeling of peace all-encompassing as some of us almost nodded off!

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Here, then, are some of the results.  And if you are in need of a little de-stressing, you are welcome to come to the oasis of calm that is the 1b classroom; why not curl up in a comfy corner and let your stresses drift away as you gaze at our 20 Improvisations (of Peace)!

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(PS No prizes for guessing whose that last one is!)

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