Kandinsky (Basic Art)

Inspiration and Admiration.

This is a great primer on the artist, with beautiful pictures and well chosen text. And the size is very manageable, a nice feature in an art book. Recommended.

Let me preface this review with the fact that I am an engineer, not an artist, and know almost nothing about art. That said... Kandinsky is one of my favorite artists, and I have a reproduction of "Composition VIII" hanging on my living room wall. The book contains many good quality pictures of Kandinsky's paintings throughout his life, showing his different styles, interspersed with text about his life. The writing is at times a bit pretentious and/or "etherial" for me. I would have preferred the descriptions of the paintings and reasons for the changings in style to be a bit more "concrete", but as I said, I'm not an artist. I also would have liked a bit more discussion of his childhood, how he got into painting, and synesthesia in general. But, given the book's very reasonable price, if you buy the book, you won't be disappointed.

Again I bought this solely for the art and was not disappointed.

I've been interested in abstract art and a friend told me about Kandinsky (who I admit I didn't think I was familiar with, until I saw some of his work) so I ordered this book. I enjoy reading these books and have six others in the TASCHEN series.

I was hoping for more from the neglected period when he was a real fine artistand not grinding out cold, flat, mechanical, digital-computer-style graphicsinfluenced by Bauhaus, that have dated to a total yawn.The book does include a handful of earlier works that hit fascinating and painterly,such as "Study for Composition VII, draft 2," "Romantic Landscape," and Untitled(First Abstract Watercolor)."The book is inexpensive, and the print quality is good, making it a worthwhilepurchase for the small selection of outstanding Kandinsky's.

Similar to what you can get from the museum gift store

I loved the book.