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Jacob Farkas
American artist Jacob Farkas was born in Brooklyn, into a family with a history of painting and fell in love with watercolours at the age of 10. After graduating from thigh school, he enrolled at The City University of New York, from where he recieved his BFA degree. His award winning paintings have been included in numerous juried and gallery exhibitions, and they hang in private and corporate collections throughout the country, as well as overseas. Jacob Farkas divides his time between painting in his studio and painting outdoors on location.
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The first abstract watercolor
In 1910 (1913, for some authors) Kandinsky painted this large-format watercolor, already applying all his theoretical conclusions that he would later collect in his book On the spiritual in art. He himself would give it this name when considering that with this work he manages to break through I complete the umbilical cord that unites creation and reality. In fact, it is an expression of what Kandinsky perceives as his inner world.
The work has an incredible dynamism that emanates from the nervous strokes of his hand, with arbitrary lines that give a great sensation of movement and strength. In this work, Kandinsky, who was also a musician, reveals his love for music and rhythm. He considers that music and color are capable of expressing spirituality by themselves. Color, free, flows throughout the work apparently in a chaotic way, although we see how red and blue tend to appear combined, balancing warm and cold.
Kandinsky managed, through intense intellectual work, to capture his world through shapes and colors detached from any material ties. He would thus lay the foundation for many other contemporary avant-garde artists to begin their own journeys through this exciting new moment in art.
When did abstract watercolor appear?
There are many artists of all kinds who, throughout history, have taken advantage of the qualities of transparency and delicate clarity of watercolor. But it is not until the beginning of the 20th century that Wassily Kandinsky tackles a new challenge: the turn to abstraction. In 1895, while Kandinsky was visiting an exhibition in Moscow, a work by Monet from the Haystacks series deeply seduced him. At first he is not able to recognize the haystacks in the field and is dazzled by what he perceives without recognizing: the same painting devoid of the object.
Kandinsky, who in 1897 left his job as a university professor at the University of Moscow to move to Munich, soaked up the style that prevailed there, the Jugendstil. He then began an evolution that other contemporary artists such as Mondrian, Malevich or Delaunay would follow in parallel: the value of the represented object is less and less transcendent and the material is altered by emotions. But this transformation will go much further.
At the beginning of the new century, Kandinsky is still an expressionist artist (a movement with strong German roots and that had its heyday in the first third of the 20th century), like the rest of the avant-garde artists who, later, in 1912, formed Der Blaue Reiter .
Kandinsky, starred in very evident transformations in his work, with more radical and dramatic colors, and increasingly unrecognizable objects; but, furthermore, he is consciously laying the theoretical foundations for the search for what he considers pure art completely detached from the object.
The Rise of Abstract Watercolor: a Look at Kandinsky
The first abstract watercolor 'by Wassily Kandinsky represents a moment of great importance on the path to abstract art.
Watercolor is, without a doubt, one of the most versatile techniques that exist. On the way to abstraction in art, this artistic technique is gaining more importance, since color is no longer a complement to drawing to become the true protagonist.
A little history:
This technique was already used in ancient times in Egypt, China, or Japan, on different supports such as papyrus, silk or ivory.
Later, in Europe, it will be a technique widely used by great masters of art, such as Leonardo Da Vinci, Albrecht Dürer, Michelangelo or Rembrandt. From the 18th century, it would be the English painters who would achieve absolute mastery in the use of watercolor and would elevate this technique to the highest category.
