Kandinsky und die Kunsterziehungsbewegung (English shop)

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The 1995 exhibition “mit dem auge des kindes” in Munich and Bern established a connection between Kandinsky’s paintings and the children’s drawings that the artist had collected together with Gabriele Münter at the beginning of the twentieth century. The discussion of Kandinsky’s paintings, however, remained unaffected by this. Taking this collection as its starting point, this essay asks what points of contact Kandinsky had with the art education movement. On the one hand, it becomes apparent that the debate on children’s drawing and drawing instruction helps to understand the children’s drawings presented in the almanac “Der Blaue Reiter”. On the other hand, it becomes clear that not only children’s drawing but also reform toys aroused the interest of avant-garde artists. Against this background, a number of examples are used to show the ways in which Kandinsky interspersed “childlike” elements in his paintings. This — together with his explanations of the “inner sound” — suggests that, like many of his contemporaries, the artist perceived the dawning twentieth century as the “century of the child”.