The bottom is animated horse mounted riders

A masterful and clear statement at the Centre Pompidou on the abundant work of one of the inventors of abstraction.

Space, movements, colors in scholarly compositions. The work of Vasily Kandinsky (1866-1944), one of the keys of vault in the history of modern art is complex. At the Centre Pompidou, it is revealed in an unusual clarity. Some 90 works from 1907 to 1942 illustrate the conduct of the artist's career. This remarkable event is made possible by the association of the French Museum with the other two major global collections, the Guggenheim in New York and the Stadtische Galerie of Munich.

Kandinsky was born in Moscow into a wealthy family and his father was a tea dealer. It is a scientific specialist of Economics and statistics. But in 1896 he lives two decisive artistic experiences: he discovered the "haystack" of Monet a painting which tends towards abstraction. and he attended a performance of "lohengrin", Wagner Opera. He then refused a teaching position that is offered and part study art in Munich. There is a community of young artists in search of modernity in the Bavarian city. The dandy travel in Europe and Tunisia and settled finally in Munich in 1908. His ambition: invent a new term in art, more spiritual. He fed his eyes during his many travels. Among the earliest paintings shown at the Centre Pompidou, there is the exceptional "Blue Mountain" of 1908. For forms, the artist is inspired of a landscape in the Bavarian countryside. His palette is Paris. He admired in 1906 in Paris "tawny" paint it considers "miraculous". The composition is divided into halos to the shock shades: yellow gold red purple, Royal Blue... The bottom is animated horse mounted riders. "Miraculous", his painting is also: a deflagration lyrical colours, while it is developing its vocabulary. In 1909 in "Landscape near Murnau with a locomotive", one-third of the Panel is occupied by the mass of white clouds. A small white figure train steam train. The landscape is smiling, with a trace of modernity the locomotive. Forms, imprecise, diluent.

The capital is 1911. He formed the movement of the blue rider with his friends Munich painters Marc, Jawlensky... It is also the year of the first table formally abstract artist. The canvas "Painting with a circle" has travelled since the national Museum of Georgia in Tbilisi. The forms are liquid. In a letter to the composer Arnold Schonberg, he explains that a new harmony emerges, equivalent of the dissonance in music. A little later in the exhibition, "Printing III" was painted after hearing a concert of Schonberg.

"Pure" geometry

The artist is expressed in the same year in a founding text, "of the spiritual in art", that it will complement in 1913. It is for absolute: "the painting caught up with the music and the two have a growing trend to create absolute works, i.e. objective works arising from themselves as beings autonomous, under the laws of nature.". Creative ambition is great. The forms are cerclées black. Exit the figuration. He represents the movement. A "pure" geometry (circles, triangles, curved) will appear in scholarly combination with colors. At the same time, his life is confused with the tribulations of the Europeans in the war. He must go to Germany and took refuge with his wife in Neuilly. In 1939, both are naturalized French.

The last paintings in the exhibition date from 1942, two years before his death. It has more white canvas shortage requires and uses grounds that strangely resemble decorative elements. Christian Derouet, curator of the exhibition, explains in the catalogue: "He began painting flat on dark cardboard." He became more careful and spontaneous. He found the taste of what as once "trifles", sort of entertainment private character. "A second youth, an antidote to the darkness of the war.